TORONTO (TIP): A Canadian parliamentary committee has voted unanimously to urge the border services agency to stop the deportation of nearly 700 Indian students who were duped by unscrupulous education consultants in India to enter the country with “fraudulent college admission letters.”
The Indian students, mostly from Punjab, face deportation from Canada after authorities found that their admission offer letters to educational institutions were fake.
The matter came to light in March when these students applied for permanent residency in Canada.
In a symbolic move, the all-party immigration committee voted unanimously on Wednesday to call on the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to waive the inadmissibility of the affected students, The Toronto Star newspaper reported. The committee also asked the CBSA to provide the students, as many as 700 from India, with an alternative pathway to permanent residence on humanitarian grounds or through a regularisation programme, the report said. Calling the students victims of fraud, Jenny Kwan, a lawmaker who tabled the motion said, “So as a first step, this is absolutely essential and necessary. The students are victims of fraud and should not be penalised.”
These students, I’ve met with many of them, now are just in such a terrible state. They’ve lost money, and they are stuck in a terrible situation. And some of them have deportation orders. Others have pending meetings with CBSA,” she added. (PTI)