Friday, August 27,
1999 'Systematic fraud' in visa
applications, report finds Chinese gangs
involved
Diane Francis National
Post
Organized crime groups in China are providing false documentation
to people interested in obtaining student visas as a backdoor way to
illegally enter Canada, according to a source and an internal report
from Citizenship and Immigration obtained by the National Post.
The report, called "Chinese Student Visas: Evidence of Organized
Fraud," shows that two-thirds of the applications recently
investigated involved "systematic, organized fraud."
"I'm not aware of the exact report, but two-thirds organized
fraud? That sounds reasonable," said Susan Gregson, an Immigration
Canada program manager, in a telephone interview yesterday from
Beijing.
"In a disturbingly high number of cases we have checked we find
that the parents are not working where they say they are working or
it's a rundown place that simply couldn't give them the income they
are allegedly earning."
She said applications in Beijing for visas are skyrocketing. They
are up by 179% this year, she said. By the end of July, 5,210 people
had applied for student visas in Canada, compared with only 1,865
for the same seven-month period in 1998. In 1994 only 900 applied.
The number of granted visas has also jumped for the first seven
months of this year to 2,273 compared to 1,733 for all of 1998.
There were 689 granted in 1997.
This means refusals have also soared, and this was because
applicants and their families had "irregular" documents or did not
have the funds they said they had, or needed, to attend four years
of school here.
"We examine the bona fides, the student, a letter of acceptance
from a Canadian institution. Do they have the money to be a student
in Canada?" Ms. Gregson said. "Tuition fees, books and living
expenses can cost $20,000 a year, depending on where and what
institution is involved.
"Although market reforms have created a number of rich people
here, and the population is comparatively richer than 15 or 20 years
ago, there's only a small fraction of the population who could
afford this," she said.
The pressure to study abroad is due to the fact that there's a
shortage of places in China's universities. Many families have only
one child and are willing to sacrifice their entire savings to send
them abroad, she added.
"In the application we have to be satisfied the family has the
funds. With salary levels much lower, we have to wonder how $20,000
a year for four or five years can be afforded. And some people have
been coming up with documentation that is not reliable," she said.
"False documentation is so easily available here. There has grown
up a whole industry of immigration agents who provide, as part of
their service, fraudulent documents. This is the minority of cases
we believe, but I don't have the resources to check out every
application," she added.
Once in Canada, nobody tracks the whereabouts of the students or
what they are doing, said the source.
The Beijing office loses track after a visa is granted, Ms.
Gregson said.
"I can't get the figures and once they have gone there is no file
anymore," she said. "I get no feedback, but I'm aware of 33 who have
done that [applied as refugees]."
Many others apply for permanent landed immigrant status -- not
the intention of a student visa.
In fact, some university officials in Canada have been
complaining that foreign visa students paying higher tuitions are
able to get landed immigrant status after a short time, which means
their tuition rates suddenly drop to those charged Canadian
residents. Once they are immigrants they also get health benefits.
Between 1992 and 1996, the Canadian Bureau for International
Education said there was a 16% decline in the number of
international students at Canadian universities and a 28% increase
in landed immigrants, formerly visa students.
"The recent boats are not unexpected and have been going for
quite some time," said Ms. Gregson, a participant in high-level
meetings with Chinese officials who warned Canada about illegal
smuggling from Fujian province due to Canada's generous refugee and
immigration process.
"We are trying to work with the Chinese government," Ms. Gregson
said. "But people-smuggling is an increasingly lucrative business.
It's an international problem and requires an international
solution," she said.
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