Thousands of former international students’ visas will expire soon. What happens next is murky

2025/11/28 Leave a comment

Would be nice if we had reliable exit data to know:

Tens of thousands of international students who were granted postgraduate work permits will see their visas expire this year, casting doubt on their futures in Canada and leading economists to wonder if some will stay in the country as undocumented residents.

There were 31,610 people with valid postgraduate work permits in the country as of Sept. 30, and those visas will expire by Dec. 31, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) provided to The Globe and Mail.

Those numbers have recently come under scrutiny by economists and immigration experts because it’s unclear how many temporary residents remain in the country after their visas expire, adding to the undocumented population….

In a statement to The Globe, the federal Immigration Department said it did not have an estimate of the number of people in Canada on expired postgraduate work permits. 

“Once someone receives a permit, they must abide by the condition of their permit, including the legal requirement to leave Canada at the end of the authorized period of stay,” the IRCC said in the e-mailed statement. 

Last year, the Canada Border Services Agency deported approximately 18,000 people, but the agency does not publicly break that number down by type of study or work permit. 

The latest IRCC data show that the number of expiring postgraduate work permits is down sharply from the same period last year, when approximately 70,000 were due to expire. …

Source: Thousands of former international students’ visas will expire soon. What happens next is murky

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Trump administration vetting 55 million foreigners with valid U.S. visas for deportable violations 

2025/08/23 Leave a comment

The latest. More and more approaching a police state:

The Trump administration said Thursday that it is reviewing more than 55 million people who have valid U.S. visas for any violations that could lead to deportation, marking a growing crackdown on foreigners who are permitted to be in the United States.

In a written answer to a question from the Associated Press, the State Department said all U.S. visa holders, which can include tourists from many countries, are subject to “continuous vetting,” with an eye toward any indication that they could be ineligible for permission to enter or stay in the United States.

Should such information be found, the visa will be revoked, and if the visa holder is in the United States, he or she would be subject to deportation.

Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration has focused on deporting migrants illegally in the United States as well as holders of student and visitor exchange visas. The State Department’s new language suggests that the continual vetting process, which officials acknowledge is time-consuming, is far more widespread and could mean even those approved to be in the U.S. could abruptly see those permissions revoked.

The department said it was looking for indicators of ineligibility, including people staying past the authorized timeframe outlined in a visa, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity or providing support to a terrorist organization.

“We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance indicating a potential ineligibility,” the department said….

Source: Trump administration vetting 55 million foreigners with valid U.S. visas for deportable violations

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Record number of people applying to come to Canada to work, study or visit were refused in 2024

2025/02/28 Leave a comment

Ottawa refused a record number of would-be visitors, international students and foreign workers seeking to come to Canada last year.

According to data obtained by the Star, immigration officials rejected 2,359,157 or 50 per cent of temporary resident applications in 2024, up from 1,846,180 or 35 per cent the year before. The refusal rate — covering study permits, work permits and visitor visas — hit the highest level since 2019, before the pandemic.

Among the three subgroups, 1.95 million or 54 per cent of visitor visa applicants were denied last year — up from 40 per cent in 2023, along with 290,317 or 52 per cent of study permit applicants (up from 38 per cent), and 115,549 or 22 per cent of those who applied for authorization to work in Canada (down slightly from 23 per cent).

The federal government has set aggressive targets to rein in the number of temporary residents in the country under tremendous public pressure amid the affordable housing crisis and rising costs of living faced by Canadians post-pandemic. It also reduced the annual intake of new permanent residents by 20 per cent to 395,000 in 2025, 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027.

To clamp down on the surging temporary resident population in the country, Ottawa has tried to limit new entries while banking on migrants already here to leave voluntarily after their legal permits expire, with a portion of them transitioning to permanent residence under eligible programs.

However, immigration data appears to show a different story when it comes to showing the door to migrants who are already here.

Migrants with expiring temporary resident status are eligible to extend their legal status by applying for what’s called a visitor record. The document allows them to remain here legally but doesn’t let them work or study.

Immigration Department data showed the number of visitor record applications received doubled from 196,965 in 2019 to 389,254 in 2024. The refusal rate hovered at around five per cent. Last year, extension was granted to 321,277 temporary residents — only down slightly from 333,672 in 2023.

“If you remain here and you cannot legalize yourself either as a student, a worker or a permanent resident, the fallback solution is a visitor record,” said Ekaterina Neouimina, who speaks on behalf of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association as a founding member.

While she’s not surprised by the jump in refusals of temporary immigration to Canada, she said it doesn’t make sense that the visitor record approvals remained high.

Source: Record number of people applying to come to Canada to work, study or visit were refused in 2024

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Thousands of international students miss fall semester amid uncertainty, visa delays

2024/10/24 Leave a comment

Seems to be more an issue for colleges than universities given examples cited:

…Brian-Paul Welsh, an immigration consultant at Northern Education Consultants, agreed with the school officials that there are two main factors at play – foreign students rethinking their destinations and “significant” visa delays.

Welsh said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada had previously come under fire for not reviewing visa applications as carefully as it should have.

That has changed recently, and now every application is being reviewed “quite thoroughly to ensure that they meet the criteria before they give them a successful decision,” he said.

Another layer of bureaucracy could be adding to the time it takes, he said. Ottawa announced in January it would require provinces to issue attestation letters for international students, without which students couldn’t apply for a visa.

Still, Welsh said the larger issue may be the federal government’s policy direction.

Students may be holding back while they wait and see whether the possibility of becoming a permanent resident after their studies is still in the cards, he said.

“The potential benefits might not outweigh what they know it would actually cost,” he said.

Source: Thousands of international students miss fall semester amid uncertainty, visa delays

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ICYMI: Canada’s immigration loophole abused by an airline employee who allegedly admitted Indians with no visa

2024/03/04 Leave a comment

Ever wonder why there are secondary checks from CBSA officials or contractors?

A former British Airways employee has allegedly fled to India after being arrested for allegedly helping Indian citizens get around immigration laws so they could claim asylum in Canada.

As initially reported in The Times of London on Tuesday, the employee who worked at Heathrow airport in London, U.K., is said to have enabled people without proper documentation to get on flights to Canada so that they could claim asylum upon entering the country. He allegedly charged £25,000 per person or about $43,000. The alleged scam is estimated to have made 3 million pounds or over $5.1 million.

After taking the money from the Canada-bound asylum seekers, the 24-year-old former employee allegedly told them to fly from India to the U.K. on a temporary visa.

According to the Times of London, Canadian immigration officials raised concerns after noticing an influx of people flying to Toronto or Vancouver without proper documentation, and claiming asylum.

Normally, airline employees would check if passengers are eligible to fly to their destination, but, using his position at British Airways, the 24-year-old was allegedly able to falsely claim that his victims had the proper documentation for travel to Canada. The former employee’s process was allegedly to make sure that the prospective immigrants came to his check-in desk at the airport. Later, he would allegedly meet them again during the boarding process and falsely report they had the correct documents a second time.

The former British Airways employee was arrested on Jan. 6, but after making bail, he and his partner, who also worked for British Airways, allegedly fled to India, where he reportedly owns multiple properties and is still on the run from U.K. and Indian authorities. If he is captured, India and the U.K. have an extradition treaty.

British Airways, said in a statement to National Post that they “are assisting the authorities with their investigation.”

This is not the first time that Indian citizens have entered Canada on false pretences. Over the past half-decade, dozens of Indian students faced deportation after unknowingly using falsified acceptance letters to Canadian universities.

National Post reached out to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for comment, but did not hear back before publication.

Source: Canada’s immigration loophole abused by an airline employee who allegedly admitted Indians with no visa

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Axworthy et al: Canada’s plan to require visas from some Mexicans is a dangerous overreaction

2024/03/01 Leave a comment

Predictable reaction but not doing so would be an even more dangerous under reaction. And there is no reason why the visa requirement cannot be combined with longer term measures to reduce the root causes (no matter how sceptical I am about their chances of success):

….Before Mr. Trudeau’s government lifted it, Mexicans were deeply offended by Canada’s cumbersome visa requirement, which required visitors to endure a frustrating process operated by an inadequately staffed bureaucracy. Canadian businesses, farmers, and tourist operators also suffered heavily. But the untold damage of visa requirements may be even more significant today: more than 350,000 Mexicans visit Canada annually, and 2 million Canadians – many of them vacationers – travel to Mexico; the country has become the 10th-largest destination for Canadian investment, with some 2,000 Canadian companies now doing business there. Fortunately, it appears that the reimposed visa restrictions won’t affect those coming to Canada on study or work permits, as seasonal workers from Mexico are the linchpin of our agricultural sector, and academic exchanges between Mexican and Canadian institutions of higher learning have grown dramatically.

Still, the federal government seems to have chosen the quick and easy way out – a short-sighted decision amid growing election fever that fails to address the real roots of the problem.

Source: Canada’s plan to require visas from some Mexicans is a dangerous overreaction

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Organized crime, including Mexican cartels, smuggling migrants to Canada

2024/02/09 Leave a comment

Foreshadowing likely re-imposition of Mexican visa requirement?:

Immigration Minister Marc Miller told the Commons that the government is looking at measures to “tighten the screws” on steeply rising migration to Canada, including examining whether to re-impose visas to visitors from Mexico.

“The flows that are coming into the country – regardless of the country of origin – particularly in terms of asylum seekers and irregular migration are very high,” he said. “I think it is important to take a look at our public policies to see where we can tighten that up – and that includes Mexico.”

Conservative immigration critic Tom Kmiec said there had been a surge in asylum claims from Mexicans to more than 14,000 a year, since the visa requirement was lifted in 2016. He pressed the minister on why action has not yet been taken to reimpose visas, with 70 per cent of Mexican asylum claims rejected.

Mr. Miller said he did not want to “downplay the severity of the issue” and that the acceptance rates from asylum seekers from Mexico were much lower overall than those from other countries. But he said Mexico is one of Canada’s most important trading partners and the issue involved “a process internally as well as with the Government of Mexico.”

Source: Organized crime, including Mexican cartels, smuggling migrants to Canada

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Canada weighing extra border measures for asylum seekers from Mexico, says public safety minister

2024/01/23 Leave a comment

Kind of amusing the impact that the large numbers, ignored for so long, have finally spurred recognition and likely action, as is the case for Monday’s introduction of caps on international students:

Canada is weighing a number of measures to prevent Mexican nationals from flying into the country to request asylum, a top official said on Sunday, after Quebec’s premier said earlier this week the lack of visa requirements for Mexican travellers meant more refugees were arriving by plane.

Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said he and the Immigration Minister Marc Miller were considering visas and other measures.

The two ministers are looking for “the appropriate way to ensure that people who arrived from Mexico arrived for the appropriate reasons and that this doesn’t become sort of a side door to get access to Canada,” Mr. LeBlanc said.

“We’re looking at a number of measures that would, in fact, put us in a position to have done what’s necessary to ensure that these flights directly from Mexico don’t become sort of an indirect way to get access to Canada and to claim asylum,” he added.

In a letter last week, Quebec Premier François Legault urged Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to stem the flow of refugees into the province and to compensate it for costs, claiming Quebec’s services were close to a “breaking point” owing to the rising number.

“Mexican nationals represent a growing proportion of the asylum seekers arriving in Quebec, the possibility of entering Canada from Mexico without a visa certainly explains part of the flow of asylum seekers,” Mr. Legault wrote in the letter.

Ottawa is coming under pressure for its immigration policies because they are blamed for exacerbating a housing crunch, and because some services provided by the provinces, like education and health care, are struggling to keep up with population growth.

Source: Canada weighing extra border measures for asylum seekers from Mexico, says public safety minister

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Gurski: Canada’s open-door immigration policy shouldn’t mean anything goes

2024/01/12 Leave a comment

Valid note of caution. Encouragingly, Minister Miller was frank about this concern and the need for rigorous security checks as well as the difference between Ukraine and Gaza:

More to the point, the ongoing war in Gaza has spurred the Liberal government to announce special measures to help the family members of Canadians get out of the war zone. In theory, this is a bold and welcome move but does have a security nexus. Hamas is the ruling party in the area — and is a listed terrorist entity in Canada. Support for it in the wake of Israeli military action after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel is on the rise, in the region, worldwide and possibly in Canada. It is possible and perhaps even probable that Hamas members or supporters will attempt to join the queue. They cannot be allowed to succeed (I am sure CSIS is well aware of the likelihood). Imagine a scenario where a recent arrival carried out an attack in the name of Hamas on Canadian soil: I would prefer not to have to go there.

We do not want to become a nation where the anti-immigrant lobby gains influence and status. We see what is happening in Europe (for instance, the political party led by far-right, anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders recently won the most seats in the Netherlands) and it ain’t pretty. One way to avoid that eventuality is to allow our security agencies to do their job, then take their advice to heart. The consequences of not doing so are dire indeed.

Phil Gurski is President/CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting, and a firmer CSIS employee. http://www.borealisthreatandrisk.com

Source: Gurski: Canada’s open-door immigration policy shouldn’t mean anything goes

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Diane Francis: Trudeau’s open immigration policies are becoming a problem for Americans

2023/11/16 Leave a comment

Picking up on earlier CBC reporting and advocating for ending the visa exemption for Mexico:

….

The Americans don’t realize that Ottawa’s immigration system needs a complete overhaul. Toronto and Vancouver are being flooded with newcomers who are overwhelming hospitals and homeless shelters, and driving up real estate prices. Visa-free travel for Mexicans is a loophole that must be closed. And Canada’s loose student visa rules must be tightened immediately.

Source: Diane Francis: Trudeau’s open immigration policies are becoming a … – Financial Post

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