A new report shows more than 10,000 postsecondary foreign student applications have been flagged by the Department of Immigration as potentially fake. Officials from the immigration department said since last year, it “intercepted more than 10,000 potentially fraudulent letters of acceptance” attached to visa applications. The department implemented enhanced security in 2023 after a cohort of foreign students from India faced deportation due to an unlicenced broker. Bronwyn May, director-general of the International Students Branch at the immigration department, last week told MPs 93% of the 500,000 acceptance letters attached to study permit applications vetted since February had been verified as legitimate, according to the Globe & Mail. However, 2% were fraudulent, and 1% were unclear. The department is investigating, said May. “Justin Trudeau and his incompetent former Immigration Minister Sean Fraser created this problem by giving out a million student visas without paying any attention to how this would affect the country,” wrote the Conservativesin a press release in response to the report. “On top of this, they turned a blind eye to the rampant fraud and abuse in the International Student Program. Now, Trudeau’s new Immigration Minister, Marc Miller, has written to the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, asking them to fix the problem that his government created.”Poilievre further pointed out “there has been a 211% increase in the number of people entering Canada through (the international student) program since Trudeau first became prime minister.“Now that the NDP-Liberal government are desperately trying to regain control of this program, temporary foreign students are now claiming refugee status in alarming numbers,” wrote Poilievre. “Already this year, there have been almost 14,000 asylum claims from international students, up from 1,810 in 2018. This number is only expected to grow.”“The revelation that the government recently uncovered 10,000 fake admissions letters is extremely alarming,” said NDP MP Jenny Kwan, House immigration critic, per the Globe.
A new report shows more than 10,000 postsecondary foreign student applications have been flagged by the Department of Immigration as potentially fake. Officials from the immigration department said since last year, it “intercepted more than 10,000 potentially fraudulent letters of acceptance” attached to visa applications. The department implemented enhanced security in 2023 after a cohort of foreign students from India faced deportation due to an unlicenced broker. Bronwyn May, director-general of the International Students Branch at the immigration department, last week told MPs 93% of the 500,000 acceptance letters attached to study permit applications vetted since February had been verified as legitimate, according to the Globe & Mail. However, 2% were fraudulent, and 1% were unclear. The department is investigating, said May. “Justin Trudeau and his incompetent former Immigration Minister Sean Fraser created this problem by giving out a million student visas without paying any attention to how this would affect the country,” wrote the Conservativesin a press release in response to the report. “On top of this, they turned a blind eye to the rampant fraud and abuse in the International Student Program. Now, Trudeau’s new Immigration Minister, Marc Miller, has written to the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, asking them to fix the problem that his government created.”Poilievre further pointed out “there has been a 211% increase in the number of people entering Canada through (the international student) program since Trudeau first became prime minister.“Now that the NDP-Liberal government are desperately trying to regain control of this program, temporary foreign students are now claiming refugee status in alarming numbers,” wrote Poilievre. “Already this year, there have been almost 14,000 asylum claims from international students, up from 1,810 in 2018. This number is only expected to grow.”“The revelation that the government recently uncovered 10,000 fake admissions letters is extremely alarming,” said NDP MP Jenny Kwan, House immigration critic, per the Globe.
