Criminologist says Canada should better track foreign student departures
CTV
A Canadian criminologist who once worked on inland immigration enforcement for the Canada Border Services Agency says Canada needs to better track foreign nationals who arrive in the country on student visas.
A Canadian criminologist who once worked on inland immigration enforcement for the Canada Border Services Agency said Canada needs to better track foreign nationals who arrive in the country on student visas.
Kelly Sundberg, a professor at Mount Royal University, said he was not shocked to hear that Indian law enforcement agencies are investigating links between Canadian colleges and a scheme to ferry international students across the Canada-U. S. border.
"I'm not surprised that our ridiculous honour-based immigration program is being gamed by transnational criminals. That doesn't surprise me at all," Sundberg said.
India's Enforcement Directorate said on Tuesday it had uncovered evidence of human trafficking after launching an investigation on the Indian connections the deaths of Jagdish and Vaishali Patel and their two children in January 2022.
The Indian family was found dead from the cold near the Manitoba-Minnesota border and last month an American and an Indian man were convicted of bringing unauthorized people into the U.S. and profiting from it.
The Indian agency says it has evidence that an Indian national allegedly arranged for people to get admissions to Canadian colleges in order to get a student visa for Canada, intending to then cross into the U.S. with no plan to actually study in Canada.
The RCMP said in a statement that it is aware of the Indian statement and have reached out through the country's international police liaison to get more information on the investigation. The RCMP said it would have no further comment.
