The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has apprehended and charged Brijesh Mishra a citizen of India, for alleged immigration-related offences.
Mishra was accused of involvement in a scandal related to fake Canadian college admission letters. The situation has put hundreds of students from Punjab and other Indian states at risk of deportation due to the fraudulent college admission letter scam.
According to news report in The Toronto Star, Brijesh Mishra was living in Surrey all the time when authorities in India and Canada were trying to haunt him down.
As reported in Toronto Star, Mishra had crossed over to Canada from the United States’ border in October last year. Mishra had earlier been arrested by the Jalandhar police in 2013 for duping students. However, he later restarted an agency under a new name. This agency’s licence was cancelled by the Jalandhar administration in March this year.
The CBSA said that following information provided to the CBSA concerning Mishra’s status in Canada, as well his alleged involvement in activities related to counseling misrepresentation, the Agency launched an investigation.
On June 23, 2023, the CBSA Criminal Investigations Section laid charges under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) based on the evidence collected during the criminal investigation.
These developments follow the recent announcement by Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, who pledged to halt the pending deportations of international Indian students who claim to have been deceived by Mishra and other unscrupulous agents.
Fraser announced to put a pause on imminent deportation of 100s of international students, majority of them from Punjab, who were caught in this fake admission letter scandal and were protesting to stop their deportation. Fraser said those students will also be issued Temporary Resident Permits (TRP) to prevent any imminent deportation.
However, this is not a sweeping order where everyone facing deportation due to fraudulent documentation, will be offered TRP. According to the minister only those students who came to Canada with a genuine intent to study, and without knowledge of the use of fraudulent documentation, will be issued the permit.
Hundreds of international students have been staging a 24-hr protest in front of the CBSA office at 6900 Airport Road in Mississauga. Both Conservative and NDP leaders had stepped in to support the students and asked government to stop their deportation.
