Indian trafficking allegations against Canadian colleges reveal ‘exploitative’ immigration system, experts say
An investigation by Indian officials that claimed dozens of Canadian colleges and universities could be linked to a scheme. students illegally crossed the Canada-US borderreveals the “shocking” extent to which loopholes in the immigration system can be exploited, according to some experts.
“If the allegations are true, it exposes shocking gaps in our integrity protocols … it’s deeply, deeply troubling and problematic,” Calgary immigration lawyer Raj Sharma told CBC News Network, adding that the allegations show “large-scale” human smuggling. “.
India’s Enforcement Directorate said in a news release on Tuesday that it had found evidence of human trafficking involving two “individuals” in Mumbai after investigating links to India. The Patel familyIn January 2022, he froze to death while trying to cross the border from Manitoba to Minnesota in freezing weather.
The Directorate of Enforcement said that as a result of its investigations, it was found that around 25,000 students were sent by one institution and more than 10,000 students were sent by another institution to various colleges outside India every year.
According to the Executive Directorate, arrangements will be made for Indian nationals to be admitted to Canadian colleges and universities and to apply for student visas.
But after arriving in Canada, the Indian nationals illegally crossed the border from Canada to the US instead of joining the college, and fees charged by Canadian schools were refunded to the individuals, the Enforcement Directorate said.
India claims that dozens of Canadian colleges are working with traffickers in India to allow people to travel to the United States. The charges follow an investigation by Indian law enforcement into the death of a family on the Manitoba-US border.
The investigation also found that approximately 112 Canadian-based colleges contracted with one institution and more than 150 with another, the Enforcement Directorate said.
The allegations have not been proven in court and India has not identified the Canadian colleges for the claim.
RCMP contacted India
Camille Boily-Lavoie, spokeswoman for the RCMP, said in an email to CBC News that it had reached out to India through its International Police Liaison Officers to get more information about the investigations.
Colleges and Institutes Canada, the national advocacy organization for Canada’s post-secondary education network, said it had no details on the nature of the colleges reportedly involved in the Indian lawsuits.
Dayna Smockum, spokeswoman for the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities, said the study permit application and admissions process is completely managed by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the student applicant and postsecondary institution.
“The Ministry of Colleges and Universities has no role in this process,” Smockum told CBC News in an email. “As our government has done time and time again, we continue to call on the federal government to take stronger border control measures to protect Ontario, our institutions and all of Canada.”
In an email to CBC News, IRCC said it is focused on strengthening the integrity of the international student program starting in 2023.
It states that it imposes a cap on enrollment levels at Designated Learning Institutions (DLIs) approved by a state or territory government to admit international students.
IRCC also says it requires DLIs to verify all acceptance letters, provides results for institutions that do not participate in student eligibility exercises, and increases minimum financial requirements for study permit applicants.
The expert says that there is no control over the immigration system
But Kelly Sundberg, a former Canada Border Services Agency officer and professor of criminology at Mount Royal University, said the system has no oversight and is being “exploited” by transnational criminals.
“This kind of fraud, this gaming of our immigration system, has actually been going on for quite some time,” he said, noting the scale of those potentially involved was “staggering.”
The U.S. has been using biometric technologies like facial recognition and fingerprinting to process immigrants for more than a decade, and Sundberg has unfortunately completely eliminated identity fraud in its program.
But Canada does not have the manpower or technology to effectively screen documents or individuals, he said.
Indian law enforcement agencies allege links between multiple colleges in Canada and two “entities” accused of trafficking students across the Canada-US border in Mumbai. Criminologist Kelly Sundberg says Canada’s honor-based immigration system is being exploited by transnational criminals, but the system has virtually no oversight or enforcement.
Sundberg said he would be “absolutely stunned” to learn that there are any colleges or universities actively and knowingly involved in this alleged criminal enterprise.
“But I’m not at all surprised that we’re seeing people in Canada, the United States and abroad coordinating to use our wide open system,” he said.
Ken Zaifman, a Winnipeg-based immigration lawyer, says in his experience, the responsibility for oversight should rest with educational institutions.
“And it didn’t happen. They depended on international students to fund their programs,” he said.
Zaifman said colleges and educational institutions should have known there was such a problem with recruiting international students, but instead continued to appoint agents to recruit students without monitoring what they did outside of Canada.
“The numbers were so significant and nobody wanted to do anything about it,” he said.
“Some universities were a little more diligent, but not all. They were appointing agents and recruiting students, and it didn’t even occur to them that maybe the student movement wasn’t genuine.”
“Fly by night” schools
But Robert Huish, associate professor of international development studies at Dalhousie University, says he believes many of the schools involved in the alleged scheme may be mostly “fly-by-night” private colleges.
“Some of these private colleges that facilitate this trade aren’t really colleges at all. They’re an abandoned office and there’s an outdated copy of Microsoft Word and that’s the entire curriculum,” he said.
“The focus here is not the legitimate colleges and universities around the country, but these day-and-night things that open up over gas stations.”
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