Let me tell you, without sounding preachy, that pragmatism is an undervalued trait in today’s world.In the aspiration of a false paradise, people often fail to appreciate their current ambience, thus getting trapped in the sweet talks of scammers. Time and again, we come across the unpleasant news of Indians getting deported or jailed for illegally entering Western nations.
Undeniably, India’s soft power has been proving handy in such situations, and India successfully pulled its citizens out of trouble in no time. But there is no doubt that illegal immigration has been costly, and the recent news from Canada is just another example of this bleak trend.
Fake Dreams, Real Consequences: Canada’s Deportation of 700 Indian Students
Recently, the Canadian authorities caught a large racket of illegal immigrants living in their nation on fake documents. Taking legal recourse, it decided to deport these illegal immigrants to their respective nations. The worrying thing is that around 700 of them are Indian students who had been tricked by a man named Brijesh Mishra.
The Canadian Border Security Agency (CBSA) issued deportation notices to these 700 Indian students. Admission offer letters to educational institutions were found to be fake. The probe found out that these 700 Indian students had applied for study visas through the Education Migration Services. This EMS is headed by the suspected head of the illegal immigration racket, Brijesh Mishra.
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These duped students shared their ordeal and experience so that no other students or Indians fall prey to these scammers and vultures feeding on the hope of these aspiring Indians. The students revealed that they were charged Rs 20 lakh. This hefty amount was charged for all expenses, including admission fees to a premier institute, Humber College. Additionally, the students were asked to arrange air tickets and security deposits on their own.
An aggrieved student, Chaman Singh Batth, explained the details of the case. He stated that after clearing +2 (12th standard), around 700 students applied for study visas through Education Migration Services in Jalandhar. This brokering agency is headed by one Brijesh Mishra. Further, Batth stated that these visa applications were filed between 2018 and 2022.
The modus operandi
A cheated Indian student Batth further explained that this scamming agency had an elaborate plan to cheat these students and yet remain unsuspected in their eyes. The plan was to keep their scamming scheme under wraps.
Batth highlighted the chronology to explain the working model of this illegal immigration racket run by accused Brijesh Mishra. Batth stated that when he and other students landed in Toronto, they received a telephone call from Mishra. Mishra advised them not to head towards Humber College and added that all seats in the courses offered to them were already filled.
However, Mishra gave them hope that they need not worry as he had an alternate plan to save their time and resources. He elaborated on two plans. As per the first plan, the students had to wait for six months till the college started admission for the next semester.
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Second, they could get admission to some other college and save time. It’s interesting to develop trust among the student community and set a trap for an escalated scam, Mishra says. He returned their Humber College fee, thus making students believe his genuineness. Later, these unsuspecting students, on Mishra’s advice, contacted another college, but a lesser-known one. These students enrolled themselves in 2-year diploma courses.
For these students, life continued as normal. The classes commenced, and within a blip of a second, their courses were over. Soon, these students got work permits. Now, as per the rules, these students were now eligible to get permanent resident status in Canada. For this, they submitted relevant documents to the immigration department.
Now comes the trouble. Batth explained that all trouble started when CBSA scrutinized the documents on the basis of which visa was granted to these students. Within no time, CBSA declared that the admission offer letters were fake. After granting a hearing opportunity, deportation notices were issued to these Indian students. Batth further highlighted the criminal mindset of the alleged suspect, Mishra.
Trust developing measures
He stated that the agent very cleverly did not himself sign their visa application files, but rather he made each student sign their application, justifying it as self-attested. Mishra told these students that in this way, they would appear as self-applicant without hiring the services of any agent. In hindsight, it is pretty evident why Brijesh Mishra took all the above decisions. In fact, he deliberately and in a well-planned manner did all those things.
However, the Canadian authority officials turned down the claims of innocence by the “victims”. As per the authorities, there was no evidence to prove that agent Mishra prepared and arranged all those fake documents. However, the CBSA refused to accept responsibility for the failure of the Canadian visa and airport authorities, who issued visas and permitted entrance by verifying the legitimacy of all documents.
The follow-up procedure for these Indian students is now a Himalayan task as well.The only option remaining for these Indian students is to challenge the deportation notices in court. This might take at least 3 to 4 years. Further, there is no denying that hiring the services of Canadian lawyers is a very costly proposition. The parents of these cheated students tried to repeatedly contact the agent in Jalandhar, but by then there was no trace of that agency.
This sorry state of affairs is not limited to one country or one continent. Earlier, an Indian man died while trying to climb a border wall into Texas. The illegal immigration from India to the US has seen a sudden surge along the US-Mexico border.
US Border Patrol had caught 4,297 Indians crossing the Mexican border in October and November. Earlier, the numbers stood at 1,426 during the same two-month period last year. As per American government data, 16,236 were caught in the last fiscal year that ended in September.
It is high time aspiring Indians and the Indian government take some hard lessons from these stories. It puts India and Indians in a bad light and diminishes our soft power. Moreover, a career born out of such illegal ways or by falling prey to scamming agencies is far worse than the average India spends, so better calculate the cost-benefit analysis before taking such drastic steps as pragmatism is the need of the hour.
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