Fake letter leaves Nigerian international student without status, asked to leave Canada
CBC
Lola Akinlade had a huge smile on her face on the day in 2019 when she walked across the stage at the Nova Scotia Community College, her new diploma for social services in her hand.
But underneath, she was worried.
"The happiness was not going deep down," she said in a recent interview near her home in Middle Sackville, N.S.
A few weeks before graduation, the international student from Nigeria received a letter from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
It said one of the documents she'd used to enter Canada in 2016 was a fake, and asked her to explain herself.
It's a charge Akinlade said she knew nothing about before IRCC told her, but which has left her and her family in Canada with no immigration status and little to fall back on if they return to Nigeria.
Akinlade said the realization that she'd relied on a fake document to get her study permit left her devastated.
"That was the beginning of my trauma."
Statistics released to CBC by IRCC, and the experience of people working in the field, suggest there could be many other international students in Canada in a similar situation.
Since IRCC began a new process to screen international student acceptance letters in December 2023, it has found more than 9,000 examples of fake letters, suggesting Akinlade's case is far from unique.
Akinlade wants IRCC to reexamine her case, arguing she was a victim of a "rogue agent" who supplied her with a fake letter of acceptance to a Canadian school.
"Please look into my file," she said. "I just want this to be sorted out."
Akinlade started thinking about studying in Canada in 2015. She was working for a pharmaceutical company in Lagos as a medical sales representative with a business administration degree from a Nigerian university.
At an office outside Lagos, she met with a man who said he worked as an immigration consultant and would guide her through the process of becoming an international student by applying for a master's degree in business administration for her.
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