Canada Won’t Deport Indian Students For Now, Task Force To Look Into Cases

Canadian authorities have decided not to immediately deport the Indian students who were trapped in an alleged immigration scam and had reached the country with fake university admission letters.

A task force has been forced to look into each case, announced the country’s immigration minister, Sean Fraser, on Wednesday.

“Only those candidates found genuine or victims of a fraud will be allowed to stay in Canada. But those found to be guilty will be prosecuted under the Canadian law,” he said.

The Canadian government had last week put on hold the deportation of the students, days after they hit the streets against the possibility of their forced departure to their own countries. However, it was not known what the next move was and how long the relief would last.

The Canada Border Services Agency had recently issued deportation letters to around 700 Indian students, mostly from Punjab, after it found their admission letters to Canadian universities to be fake.

Most of these students arrived in Canada in 2018, but claimed the issue of fake letters surfaced only after five years when they applied for permanent residency.

The issue reverberated in the Canadian parliament where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had said his focus was on “identifying the culprits and not penalising the victims.”

“Victims of this fraud will have an opportunity to demonstrate and present evidence for their case. We recognise the immense contributions that the international students bring to our country,” Trudeau had said.

Foreign Minister S Jaishankar had earlier said that the government has taken up the issue with Canadian authorities. He had said the Canadians agreed that it would be unfair (to deport) if the students have not done anything wrong.