Chinese students take Ottawa to court over study permit delays
2025/09/04 Leave a comment
Security clearances take time, particularly for citizens of countries with a history of foreign interference and opaque organizations, making some being caught up in the vetting process:
Dozens of Chinese graduate students are accusing Ottawa of discrimination because their study permit applications have been left in limbo for months, preventing them from beginning their advanced degrees at Canadian universities.
“It’s already [done] very serious damage to my life,” Yixin Cheng, a 27-year-old would-be PhD student in computer science at UBC, told CBC News from Hangzhao, China.
Cheng is one of a group of 25 students who have filed a case in Federal Court against Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), alleging their files have been unfairly stalled in the security screening phase. All of them have been accepted into graduate-level programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at universities including UBC, McGill and the University of Waterloo.
All 25 were still in China as the new school year began this week.
“Basically, the IRCC pressed the pause button for my life for over one year,” said Cheng.
Cheng applied for a study permit back in May 2024, and quit a high-paying job because he expected to be at UBC last fall. The IRCC website says the standard processing time for students from China is four weeks. …
Their lawyer, Toronto-based Vakkas Bilsin, says their similarities — all Chinese citizens, all seeking graduate programs in STEM — made him think “there is something serious going on.”
He says the lack of transparency is particularly frustrating, saying that four or five weeks after some students had submitted their applications, IRCC’s application tracker said the agency had only just started the background check process.
“We still don’t understand why a detailed, extensive security check is necessary in this specific circumstance of these students,” he said.
IRCC said in an emailed statement it is “committed to a fair and non-discriminatory application of immigration procedures. All applicants seeking to come to Canada — regardless of their country of origin or the program under which they apply — are subject to the same screening processes.”
It says the website only offers a general idea of how long the process may take and that, under the law, all people looking to enter the country must meet admissibility requirements, including a security screening.
Source: Chinese students take Ottawa to court over study permit delays
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