Canada to strip 3,100 people of citizenship

Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney

(The Province) Immigration system scammers in B.C. should be starting to sweat.

Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced Monday more than 3,100 people will be stripped of their Canadian citizenship for cheating the system — and on top of that, another 11,000 citizenship applications are under investigation.

While most of those 3,100 under fire right now are Middle Eastern immigrants to Eastern Canada — the Greater Toronto Area and Montreal — a local expert says B.C.’s Asian immigrants should be wary.

“I’m interested in the 11,000 watch list investigation,” said Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland who’s been flooded with calls from colleagues based in Hong Kong with nervous clients.

“I suspect that you’re going see a larger number of Asian based files [in the Lower Mainland].”

“It’s about time,” he said. “These bad apples are clogging up the citizenship processing system — creating long delays for good people.”

Investigations into these scams are the reason we end up waiting “way too long” to renew our passports.

“Where do the resources come from? If you’re doing an investigation you’re certainly not processing a citizenship application,” he said.

In order for immigrants to legally obtain Canadian citizenship, they need to live in Canada for three years, speak English, and not have a criminal record.

“But some people just don’t spend the time here and they say they are here,” he said.

According to Kurland, a Canadian passport is about money for Middle Eastern immigrants: They get paid more with Canadian citizenship.

But for Greater Chinese immigrants, they’re in search of an “insurance passport” — in case of political transition.

“In the event of a problem I walk to the airport I get on a plane, I don’t need a visa — it’s my insurance to get out of here,” said Kurland. “Scenarios where you’ve really got to leave your home and everything in it lickety split.”

In both scenarios they fraudulently obtain the passport by faking their physical presence in Canada.

According to Kurland, criminal organizations are set up across the world accepting payments from illegal immigrants to create a “false paper trail.”

“[So they pay] $20,000 to an agent, the agent registers [(them] at an apartment address, the agent opens bank accounts, pays credit cards, electric bills, cable bills,” he said.

They even go as far as setting up salary and deductions from a fictitious employer.

But more often than not, these agents only purchase one apartment and filter dozens of clients through it — and due to an upgrade to Immigration Canada’s computer system a couple years ago, they started to catch the repetition of addresses, said Kurland.

“When you find 72 people living at the same address a bell goes off,” he said.

“It’s a very long time coming,” he added. “[Because] what’s happening is you’re rewarding people who flout the rules.”

“How do you tell honest people who stay here the required three year period in Vancouver that they’re doing the right thing when they know a neighbour or someone else who have presented false documents of physical presence and are proudly carrying a Canadian passport back home?”

Kenney admitted that only 19 out of the 3,100 people have had their citizenship revoked as of Monday. But federal agencies have removed or denied admittance to more than 600 former permanent residents, denied about 500 citizenship applications and nearly 1,800 applicants linked to cheating have abandoned their applications.

Kenney also said he plans to introduce amendments to the Citizenship Act that would require immigration consultants to be members of a regulatory body, which is intended to crack down on crooked agents.

lcahute@theprovince.com

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