An investigation by Indian officials alleging that dozens of Canadian colleges and universities may be linked to the scheme… illegally transporting students across the Canada-US border reveals the “astonishing” extent to which loopholes in the immigration system can be exploited, some experts say.
“If the allegations are true, it exposes shocking gaps in our integrity protocols. … It's deeply, deeply disturbing and problematic,” Raj Sharma, a Calgary immigration lawyer, told CBC News Network, adding that the allegations suggest “wide-scale human smuggling.”
India's Enforcement Directorate said in a press release on Tuesday that it had uncovered evidence of human trafficking involving two “entities” in Mumbai after investigating Indian links with the Patel familywho froze to death in January 2022 while trying to cross the border from Manitoba into Minnesota during freezing weather conditions.
The Enforcement Directorate said its investigation revealed that around 25,000 students were referred by one entity every year and over 10,000 students were referred by another entity to various colleges outside India.
According to the Enforcement Directorate, arrangements will be made for Indian nationals to be admitted to Canadian colleges and universities and apply for student visas.
However, when the Indian nationals reached Canada, instead of enrolling in college, they illegally crossed the Canada-US border and the fees received by Canadian schools were refunded to the individuals' accounts, the Enforcement Directorate said.
India alleges that dozens of Canadian universities are working with traffickers in India to help people get to the United States. The charges come from Indian law enforcement following an investigation into the death of a family on the Manitoba-US border.
The investigation also revealed that approximately 112 Canadian-based universities contracted with one entity and more than 150 with another entity, the Enforcement Directorate said.
The allegations have not been proven in court, and India has not identified the Canadian universities allegedly involved in the case.
The RCMP contacted India
Camille Boily-Lavoie, a spokeswoman for the RCMP, said in an email to CBC News that it has contacted India through its international police liaison officers to obtain additional information about the investigations.
Colleges and Institutes Canada, the national organization that supports Canada's post-secondary education network, said it had no details about the nature of the colleges allegedly involved in the allegations against India.
The study permit application and approval process is entirely managed by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the student applying for admission and the post-secondary institution, said Dayna Smockum, spokeswoman for the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities.
“The Ministry of Colleges and Universities has no role in this process,” Smockum said in an email to CBC News. “As our government has done repeatedly, we continue to call on the federal government to implement more stringent border control measures to protect Ontario, our institutions and all of Canada.”
In an email to CBC News, IRCC said its focus from 2023 is on strengthening the integrity of its international student program.
It says it has capped enrollment levels on Designated Learning Institutions (DLI) – schools approved by a provincial or territorial government to accept international students.
IRCC says it has also required DLI institutions to review all acceptance letters, introduced consequences for institutions that do not participate in student compliance exercises, and increased minimum financial requirements for study permit applicants.
An expert says the immigration system lacks oversight
However, Kelly Sundberg, a former Canada Border Services Agency officer and professor of criminology at Mount Royal University, said the system is uncontrolled and is being “exploited” by international criminals.
“This type of fraud to defraud our immigration system has been going on for a long time,” he said, noting that the number of people potentially involved “is astonishing.”
The United States has been using biometric technologies such as facial recognition and fingerprinting to process immigrants for more than a decade and has all but eliminated ID fraud in its program, Sundberg sad.
But Canada doesn't have the staff or technology to effectively check documents or people, he said.
Indian law enforcement authorities allege there are links between numerous universities in Canada and two “entities” in Mumbai accused of trafficking students across the Canada-US border. Criminologist Kelly Sundberg says Canada's honor-based immigration system is being exploited by transnational criminals even though it is virtually unchecked or enforced.
Sundberg said he would be “totally surprised” to learn that there are colleges and universities that are actively and knowingly engaging in this alleged criminal enterprise.
“But I'm not at all surprised that both in Canada, the United States and abroad, we're seeing people who have coordinated to take advantage of our wide open system,” he said.
Ken Zaifman, a Winnipeg immigration lawyer, says in his experience, responsibility for oversight should rest with educational institutions.
“And that didn't happen. They were dependent on foreign students to fund their programs,” he said.
Zaifman said colleges and educational institutions should have realized there was such a problem recruiting international students, but instead chose to continue to appoint agents outside Canada to recruit students without control over what they did.
“The numbers were so significant and no one really wanted to do anything about it,” he said.
“Some universities have been a bit more diligent, but not all. They appointed agents and attracted students, but it never occurred to them that perhaps these students' movement was not genuine.”
“Flying by night” schools.
However, Robert Huish, an associate professor in the department of international development studies at Dalhousie University, claims that many of the schools involved in this alleged scheme are mostly private, night-time universities.
“Some of these private colleges that have facilitated this trade are not actually colleges. “It's an abandoned office with an outdated copy of Microsoft Word and that's the entire curriculum,” he said.
“The big emphasis here is not so much on the legal colleges and legal universities across the country, but on these nightlife facilities that open up above gas stations.”