Canada’s Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has identified over 10,000 student acceptance letters as possibly fraudulent, raising concerns over the integrity of international student admissions.
The move follows the introduction of stricter verification procedures aimed at addressing issues with fake letters discovered in previous years.
According to The Economic Times, the director-general of the International Students Branch at IRCC, informed a parliamentary committee that the government had introduced stricter verification processes in response to the growing issue.
The new checks were carried out over the past year as part of the review of 500,000 student applications. While most of the letters were confirmed to be genuine, a significant number were flagged as suspicious.
Stricter verification of student admissions
The new checks revealed that 93% of the student acceptance letters were verified as legitimate. However, 2% of the documents were found to be fraudulent, while 1% were linked to canceled admissions. In several instances, universities and colleges had failed to properly confirm the authenticity of the letters before admitting students.
Bronwyn May explained that the enhanced verification measures were introduced after a series of cases in 2023, where international students were at risk of deportation due to receiving fraudulent acceptance letters from an unlicensed consultant in India.
These incidents prompted the government to take action by requiring educational institutions to confirm acceptance letters through an online portal, a process that is now mandatory for all applicants, whether inside or outside Canada.
Concerns over Student exploitation
Reports inform that the issue of fraudulent student documents has raised additional concerns regarding the treatment of international students. Jenny Kwan, an immigration critic for Canada’s New Democratic Party, described the findings as “extremely alarming” and called for the government to address both the fraudulent practices and potential involvement of educational institutions.
“Canada has a responsibility to ensure that international students who have been defrauded are protected,” Kwan said in an interview with The Globe and Mail, according to the Times.
Kwan stressed that Canada’s reputation as a destination for international students could be at risk if such fraudulent practices were not swiftly dealt with. She urged the government to not only focus on fraud prevention but also provide support for students who had been misled.
CR: Nairametrics
