Natasha Fatah Raj Sharma, who's joining us from Calgary, he is the founder and managing partner of Stewart Sharma Harsanyi, one of Canada's largest dedicated immigration law firms. Raj, thanks so much for making time for us.
Raj Sharma KC: Thanks for having me.
Natasha Fatah: Raj, I know you follow what's happening in the world of immigration in Canada and many of these geopolitical stories closely. What's your reaction to what we just heard from Ehsan coming out of New Delhi?
Raj Sharma KC: Natasha, the initial reaction is that the allegations, if they're true, would be truly staggering. The allegations involve hundreds of these private DLI -designated learning institutions, these colleges that sort of cater to the international student market, shall we say. So the Indian media reports are indicating over 250 of these DLI we're working with two as yet unnamed Indian entities. They're paying between 50 and 60 lakhs per person. Again, according to your reporter, that's a significant amount of money, let's say $60,000. And if it's true, if the allegations are true, it would reveal shocking gaps in our integrity protocols. And we know already that last January, not so long ago, Mr. Miller brought in some reforms to the international student regime requiring, for example, confirmations and determinations and authenticity and other audit and other checks. So that's the initial reaction that if these allegations are true, this is deeply, deeply concerning and problematic,
Natasha Fatah: As you say, if these allegations are true. And I wonder if we can draw upon your own experience as an immigration lawyer for many, many years, have you encountered situations like this? Have you heard about stories like this where people are coming in thinking they're coming for an education or saying they're coming for an education, but really there are other things at play here? What's your familiarity with these types of schemes?
Raj Sharma KC: Absolutely. We've been dealing with that for well over a decade. So I'll take you back to perhaps CBC's own reporting on this. We had Brijesh Kumar Mishra, involved in bringing students over to Canada. They were supposed to study at various institutions including Waterloo University. They didn't actually study there. Some of them ended up studying somewhere else. Eventually CBSA sort of caught up to them. And we had about 700 or so Indian students caught up with this. And a lot of them were indicating that they were dupes, that they had no idea that their admission letters were in fact fraudulent. And that was 2023 or so. At that time, those allegations were sort of taken seriously, that they were in fact dupes and sort of the removal process was stopped for them now. So that's happened, but the allegations here are quite different.
The allegations here would suggest wide scale human smuggling. Now again, when we take those allegations, especially from the India media, the Indian government and the Indian media, shall we say, not to sort of put a too fine of a point on it, are not fans of this current prime minister and this current liberal government. And we can get into that as well. But I think we should bear in mind that two individuals were convicted in the United States as Steve Shand and a Harshkumar Patel regarding that tragic death of that family that froze to death at the border. Now, these allegations that India is now presenting again 20 days prior to Trump reclaiming his role at the White House, this allegation of this vast human network, this vast human smuggling operation, did not figure into those two convictions that just took place a few weeks ago.
Natasha Fatah: One thing that Ehsan mentioned in his reporting is that many Indians, and of course we're talking about human smuggling happening from all different parts of the world, but specifically in this case in India, the smuggling is happening because it seems as though the Canadian laws are lax and the Canadian points of entry are lax, and therefore they can come to Canada and make their way into the United States. Is that a legitimate issue? Is that something that you are encountering?
Raj Sharma KC: It's not necessarily lax, it's how the system operates. Ehsan's report is quite correct. It could take well over a year to get an interview for a B1, B2 visa to the US from a national of India. So there is that, but the fact of the matter is you're dealing with very, very, again, if the allegations are true, you're talking about a very, very sophisticated operation. Again, many questions sort of arise and we're at the early stages here. What we have in terms of the Indian reporting and the enforcement directorate, again, an investigation that apparently was launched in 2022 and was only released to the media after the US convictions of the incident that prompted their investigation in the first place. And again, three weeks prior to Mr. Trump reclaiming his role at the presidency. So a lot of questions arise. The Indian reporting indicates that these 250 plus institutions in Canada would refund the tuition and apparently not report this obvious pattern of behavior because we're talking about 35,000 individuals that use this route to enter the us.
So back to your question, does Canada have a lack system? These human smuggling, these networks will utilize the appropriate, let's say arbitrage. So whether that means going through that dangerous gap in Panama and through various countries in south and central America to reach Mexico and then get across the southern border, or whether that requires getting a visitor visa or a temporary resident visa to Canada and then going southward again, we can point to various policy decisions by this government, for example, relaxing the visitor visa requirements. And so we ended up granting, I believe, 400,000 visitor visas just in 2023. So they're sophisticated operators, they understand what's required. The end goal is to get someone to the US and these individuals, remember, these are not dupes. Now, the Indian media indicated that these nationals were lured, these innocent Indian nationals were lured into going down this path. I would say paying 55 to 60 lakhs suggests complicity rather than being somehow duped.
Natasha Fatah: Okay. Raj Sharma, thank you for your time.
Raj Sharma KC: Thank you.
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