Canada may deport over 7,000 Indian students over bogus acceptance letter scam

As many as 10,000 acceptance letters of foreign students who entered Canada on a student visa were found to be fraudulent, as revealed by an official in the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on November 15.

Reports have emerged stating that around 80% of these bogus letters belonged to students from Gujarat and Punjab. This would directly translate to deportation for around 7,000 to 8,000 Indian students in Canada.

Visa expert Pankaj Patel opines, “If the acceptance letters submitted by the students are found to be bogus, their admission will be cancelled and they will be sent back to India.”

He adds that the Trudeau government will be aggressive in their stance against such concerns following the strained Indo-Canadian ties.

The Canadian government’s scrutiny also sheds light on the horde of scams carried out by fraudulent visa consultancy firms, who issue these acceptance letters on their own.

Such acts put a serious burden on the students and their families, who have spent an amount to the tune of ₹25 lakh after studying in Canada.

The official in IRCC also reportedly mentioned that they established that almost 93% of the 5 lakh acceptance letters scrutinised in the past 10 months were found to be genuine, while 2% were inauthentic, seats of 1% of candidates were found to be cancelled, and the remaining institutions failed to present the documents.

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