Indian Students In Canada Stage Protest Fearing Deportation Due To ‘Bogus Offer Letters’

Canada has been a favourite destination for Indian students for international studies, especially for students hailing from Punjab who make up the majority of international students. Over 2.5 lakh students from Punjab have been moving annually to other nations in recent years, primarily Canada.

However, for the past week, a dozen students from Punjab who were victims of a fake admission scam have been protesting against deportation orders issued by the Canadian government. Nearly 700 students are said to be on the radar of the Canadian authorities, reported the Times Of India. These students have hit the roads in Canada against possible deportation over allegations of admission on “bogus offer letters”, a racket they claim has been spun by travel agents back home.

Agent Brijesh Mishra of the Jalandhar-based counselling company EMSA Education and Migration Services Australia represented the majority of the impacted pupils.

Students have gathered outside the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) headquarters on Airport Road in Mississauga for the ongoing, indefinite demonstration since May 29. All of these students who are either under the radar or are protesting arrived in Canada between 2017 and 2019. After the CBSA determined that the confirmation of an offer of admission to a Canadian higher education school was “fake,” the agency sent the students notifications for hearings in 2021 and 2022.

Sean Fraser, the minister of immigration for Canada, responded to students’ queries and promised to investigate the matter despite the CBSA’s claims that these students from Punjab arrived in Canada “under false pretence, fraudulently.”

The very first individual to be deported on June 13 was Lovepreet Singh from Punjab, who had moved to Mississauga in September 2017 to study management at Lambton College. A dozen other students were deported shortly after. According to TOI, Lovepreet stated in his tweets that his agent first requested that he refrain from reporting to the college to which he had been admitted, but instead transfer to another. Lovepreet became suspicious of this, and he later learned that his immigration documents were fraudulent and that it had not been reflected on the college’s system. He asserted that similar student scamming is a common practice among travel agents.

While this is going on, Punjab’s minister for NRI affairs, Kuldip Singh Dhaliwal, has reached out to EAM S Jaishankar requesting his intervention in the matter as it affects the lives and careers of the students in the long term.