Canada unearths an Indian scam

Citizenship and Immigration Canada officials have discovered 42 wedding albums submitted with 42 different citizenship applications in which the guests in the photos were all the same. All the weddings had supposedly taken place at the same Wedding Palace in Chandigarh in India's Punjab region. "You'd have to believe that 42 weddings had the same guests," says Mendel Green, president of Green and Spiegel, who has been practising immigration law for 42 years. Seeing albums with all the same wedding guests and the same wedding hall is something with which his firm is familiar." Yes, people have brought fake photos to us," says Ravi Jain, a partner with the firm. "We have seen people posing in the photos. We have seen same wedding halls, same guests over and over again." Jain says some people are so bold to admit they have a "paper marriage." "They do so largely to get a visa because they can't qualify as skilled workers and the only way they can qualify is under the family class," he says.

Liberal MP Roy Cullen, who has 29,000 South Asians in his Etobicoke North riding, says many Indo-Canadians in his riding have expressed concerns over this "abuse" of the system. "They are telling me it is becoming like an epidemic and it is being seriously abused and so sometime back I spoke with former immigration minister Monte Solberg. I suggested to him - and I am soon going to write to his successor Diane Finley - that immigration rules could be amended to issue spousal visas on a probation of say three to five years and if at the end of this period the couple is still in marital relationship, they should be given permanent landed status." In addition to people getting illegal immigration status with these phoney marriages, Jain says Canadian immigration officers have also started "over-scrutinizing all family class applications, genuine marriages." "I have one case involving a pregnant woman and they are refusing that case," Jain says. "This woman in Canada was divorced before. She went to India to marry a guy who was never married before. She got pregnant by him. "Immigration has refused a family class visa to the Indian person, arguing an Indian, who has never been married before, would never marry a divorced woman." Immigration officials believe that this Indian man must have paid the Canadian woman $10,000 to $15,000 just to get the Canadian visa.

"That's the theory of the Canadian visa officer who refuses to give him the visa, which is ridiculous," Jain says. "It's just awful and doesn't send a good message to the Indian community in Canada that people are using women in the community basically like the prostitutes." Toronto's Ramesh Maharaj married an Indian woman, Sudha Arora. They were both divorced and, according to their own beliefs, part of their Hindu religious marriage vows, didn't perform Saptapadi (taking seven steps round the sacred fire) a second time. It was not termed a legal marriage. Stephen Green, also an immigration attorney at Green and Spiegel, dealt with one case in which the Indo-Canadian woman was slightly physically handicapped. She married an Indian man with no physical limitations. That too was termed a phony marriage: "How can an Indian man ever marry a physically handicapped woman?" These are two extremes. "Yes, absolutely phony marriages are taking place largely to get visa and those cases should be investigated and refused," Jain says. "We know Immigration is aware of this." Statistics show about 60,000 Canadians marry overseas each year and file international spousal sponsorships. About 15% are rejected by Canada Citizenship and Immigration. In the case of India, the rate is 23%.

Report on Problems of Immigrants Published

by Neil Armstrong

While most new immigrants agree that life in Canada has lived up to their expectations, many indicate that their greatest difficulty is finding an adequate job (46 per cent), even after four years in Canada. Many also list learning English or French as a difficulty (26 per cent). Recently, Statistics Canada released two new reports from the third and final wave of the 'Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada'. It was designed to study how newly arrived immigrants adjust over time to living in Canada. Eighty-four per cent of new immigrants were positive about their decision to come to Canada; 32 per cent settled permanently for the quality of life; 20 per cent to be close to family and friends; 18 per cent for future prospects for their family in Canada; and nine per cent for the peaceful nature of the country. Some 12,000 immigrants aged 15 and over were interviewed between April 2001 and May 2002, about six months after their arrival. In 2003, about 9,300 of the same immigrants were interviewed again, about two years after their arrival. Two years later in 2005, about 7,700 of the same immigrants were interviewed a third time, four years after their arrival. Although 15 per cent of economic immigrants - those selected for their education and professional skills - reported that their expectations of life in Canada had consistently been exceeded, only one third of family-class immigrants and refugees reported a similar feeling.

Experienced problems
The study found that between seven and 24 months after arrival, 62 per cent of all new immigrants aged 25-44 had looked for a job,and that during the period, between 25-48 months after arrival, 53 per cent had done so. The majority reported that they experienced problems or difficulties when searching for employment. The difficulties cited were lack of Canadian work experience (50 per cent); lack of contacts in the job market (37 per cent); lack of recognition of foreign experience (37 per cent); lack of recognition of foreign qualifications (35 per cent); and, language barriers (32 per cent). In Ontario last month, a group of new immigrants gave the province's new Fairness Commissioner, Dr. Jean Augustine, an earful about the lack of recognition of their foreign experience/qualifications and the requirement for them to have Canadian experience. New Democratic Party (NDP) MPs Bill Siksay (Burnaby-Douglas) and Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) are calling on the federal government to review the current immigration system, especially the selection process of skilled applicants. "We are breaking a promise to new Canadians when they are unable to use their education and work experience in Canada," said Siksay, NDP's citizenship and immigration critic. "This creates serious problems, including the need for secure employment, steady income, and a stable quality of life. We must not turn our backs on immigrants at one of the most difficult times in their lives, the period when they are working to establish themselves and their families in Canada." Among the immigrants who were admitted to Canada in the economic category, almost half (45 per cent) said finding employment was the greatest difficulty they faced while 15 per cent said it was learning English or French. Twenty-six per cent of refugees said finding employment was their greatest difficulty, and 30 per cent said it was learning English or French.

Languages
The second report - 'Knowledge of Official Languages among New Immigrants: How Important is it in the Labour Market?' - analyses the relationship between knowledge of the two languages and the chances of immigrants to find an 'appropriate' job. The survey showed that the employment rate of immigrants aged 25-44 increased with higher levels of self-reported proficiency in spoken English for each of the survey's three waves. Immigrants who reported that their level of spoken English was good or very good were more likely to have a high-skill job, a job in the intended field, a job similar to one held before emigrating, and a job related to training or education. It found that they also had higher wages, compared to immigrants whose spoken English level was not as good. This was true six months, two years and four years after immigrants' arrival in Canada. However, the relationship between the self-reported ability to speak French and the chances of having an 'appropriate' job was not as strong, nor as persistent, the report indicated. In Quebec, the hourly earnings of immigrants who spoke English very well were generally higher, regardless of the level of French, than those of immigrants who did not speak either official language well.

Got Rs. 45 Lakhs? You can Buy Canadian Citizenship for whole Family

source: The Weekly Voice, Canada

Those who have reportedly been paying sums like Rs 30 lakh to become kabootars (illegal migrants) may have missed a trick!! For as little as Rs 45 lakh, an entire family can become Canadian citizens completely legally. In fact, for a somewhat larger amount, a family could become citizens of the US, UK, Australian or New Zealand too. The majority of Indians hankering to settle abroad may not know this, but many Indian businessmen have been utilising schemes floated by these countries to gain citizenship in return for investing a few hundred thousand dollars there. What(tm)s more, some foreign banks are even willing to part-finance your investment.

Governments in the US, Canada, UK, New Zealand and Australia, among others, are offering citizenship to anybody (and his/her family) who is willing to invest a certain minimum sum in their country. The sums vary in each case, as do the strings attached. In the UK, citizenship comes with an investment of £750,000 (about $1.5 million or a little over Rs 6 crore). In the US, $500,000 (Rs 2 crore) will get you and your family citizenship, for New Zealand a million New Zealand dollars (Rs 3 crore). In Australia, there is no minimum investment stipulated. However, a commitment to start a business within four years will do the trick. In the case of Canada, the stipulated minimum investment that gets you automatic citizenship is 400,000 Canadian dollars or about Rs 1.4 crore. However, a major Canadian bank, Desjardins with assets of $130 billion and ranked 92nd internationally has come up with its own scheme under which it will finance around 70% of the amount if the investor makes a down payment of 30%. That means just Rs 45 lakh will do to get you Canadian citizenship.

Citizenship-for-investment schemes have been around for a couple of years in most cases, but Indians were unable to take advantage of them as they were not allowed to invest more than $25,000 per year abroad till December last year. With the RBI increasing the limit from $25,000 to $50,000 and then to $100,000 last month, Desjardins foreign citizenship has become possible. A family of five, for instance, could take out $500,000 in one go without violating RBI guidelines. Desjardins offer is recognition of this fact. Explaining the scheme, Marc Audet, vice president of Desjardins, said, "The bank offers a scheme under which one needs to deposit only C$120,000 with the bank. The bank will finance the remaining C$280,000 to file the application for permanent residency (which entitles you to citizenship after two years) in Canada." The C$400,000 are invested in interest-free Canadian government bonds. After five years, when the government returns the money, the bank will keep all of it. In effect, the C$120,000 you pay upfront becomes the interest earned by the bank on the C$280,000 that it lends you to file the application.