According to the Toronto Police Service and immigration officials, students from China are winding up in jail because they overstayed their time in Canada. The overstay in Canada was, allegedly, under the false pretense that  “fake” immigration consultants were helping them sort out their immigration issues.

These immigration consultants have claimed to be interpreters with the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) as well as told immigrants they have special contacts at immigration offices in the city that could help them out.

The scammers contacted York University students through a Chinese-language website. One student was a failed refugee claimant who was ordered to leave Canada in 2007 but stayed, and a warrant was issued for her arrest. The student had worked at a downtown Tim Hortons while living in Toronto and handed all of her money over to the criminals, about $18,000. Once the money ran out, the fake immigration consultants allegedly sent her an e-mail address of a border official they said would take on her case, but instead arrested her.

After she was arrested, she called her immigration consultants still believing they were legitimate and was told it would cost $10,000 to get her out of jail. Both the student and her new, actually legitimate immigration consultant Roy Kellogg say that there are many other Chinese victims living in Toronto that have been scammed by the criminals, and as soon as they can’t pay anymore the criminals get them deported.

Currently we are in the midst of a grey area when determining whether an immigration consultant is legitimate. Earlier this year many shady consultants were prosecuted for defrauding immigrants, and some were even members of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants.

As we have written many times in the past, when it comes to immigration consultants, “buyer beware”.

Unscrupulous immigration consultants have been widely reported on in the media of late, taking advantage of immigrants and taking their money while offering little in return and in some cases, nothing in return. They finally received enough attention for the government to propose new rules to regulate the industry, but now some Canadian job recruiters are taking advantage of temporary foreign workers.

The Calgary Herald reported on one woman who paid almost $6,000 to an employment agency and learned there was no job for her after she landed, even though she had a work permit and experience.

Hundreds of separate investigations in Alberta have been launched within the past four years alone, looking into these employment agencies and their charging of fees for essentially doing nothing. Charging fees to help someone find a job is illegal, so the fees go by other names, like “settlement” fees.

In the fall, Ottawa is expected to receive recommendations on how to fix the problems because no matter which province the problems occur in, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program is a federal program.

In December 2009, there were approximately 283,000 temporary foreign workers in all of Canada.

Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney proposed new measures last year that would help solve these problems such as having a better assessment process of potential job offers, checking out employers with regards to their compliance with labour laws and placing restrictions on hiring foreign workers if the employer is found to break promises about wages and work conditions.

Those changes have not come to pass, but other changes have been considered with regards to employment agencies, such as: revising the definition of an employment agency, requiring written contracts between job seekers, employers and employment agencies, putting an end to false advertising, threatening deportation and misrepresenting wages and the rights of workers and regulating fees for settlement services. It should be decided this fall as to whether any of these proposals will become reality.

A Montreal-based immigration consultant that also worked in areas overseas was charged Tuesday, June 15th with conspiracy and organizing feigned marriages.

Richard Yalaoui, is an accredited immigration consultant and a member of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) The arrest of Yalaoui and several others come after a year and a half long investigation and includes charges like possession of equipment used to commit forgery, unlawful possession of credit card data and conspiracy to forge documents and credit cards.

The consultant helped newcomers to Canada get around immigration laws and rules, advising clients to break the law in order to get into Canada, by marriage to Canadian citizens or by forging documents to say such.

“He was telling people how to come to Canada while getting around the laws”, said spokesperson for the RCMP Luc Thibault, “he was acting as a consultant not just in Montreal, but overseas also.”

The RCMP is also considering the fact that those immigrating to Canada may have thought the marriages were legitimate and may have been unaware that the documents were forged. As early as 2007, Yalaoui was involved in a case where a man was refused a permanent residency visa because the man’s marriage to a Canadian citizen didn’t seem to be real.

The initial investigation was not into shady immigration consultants, but rather document fraud that included forging Canadian passports.

In our ongoing coverage of the Canadian government’s efforts to tackle the problem of dealing with unethical immigration consultants, the latest information is that Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney has proposed new measures in an attempt to regulate the immigration consultant industry.

This year, several stories have come to light telling of prospective immigrants who were told to lie in order to stay in Canada or other immigration consultants who merely took the applicant’s money and ran – not filing anything on their behalf as they promised.

According to Kenney’s new measures, a $50,000 fine awaits anyone attempting to engage in immigration fraud and offering immigration advice in exchange for a fee if the “consultant” is unauthorized will be considered a crime.

One move in particular that comes as a surprise is that Kenney is removing any power from the Canadian Society for Immigration Consultants. Normally, this organization is the one who decides who can be an immigration consultant and who cannot. Kenney said that the CSIC does not pay enough attention to the shadier consultants and charges too much for membership.

Kenney said in his announcement that he will be creating a new immigration consultant regulation body instead, one that will be accountable to the government.

“While most immigration consultants working in Canada are legitimate and ethical, it is clear that immigration fraud remains a widespread threat to the integrity of Canada’s immigration system,” Kenney said at a press conference this week.

Metro News told the story today of one prospective immigrant from Chile who paid an immigration consultant US$5,000 to complete and file the necessary paperwork on his behalf, only to discover years later that the paperwork was not legitimate. His entire family was saved from deportation only at the last minute, but his story is unfortunately not unique, as many immigrants only wanting to start a better life in Canada have been denied because of errors on their paperwork, failure to file the paperwork or outright lies and fraud encouraged by the consultants.

For our previous posts on this topic go here, here and here.

It seems that this story is not going away.As reported, the province of Quebec is proposing legislation aimed at curbing  unethical and unprofessional representation by immigration consultants in Quebec.

While we fully support Quebec for its initiative, the way in which their proposal reads is problematic as it will likely unduly restrict licensed out of province immigration lawyers from doing their jog for Quebec-bound immigration and visa applicants.  For more information on this topic visit the Lawyers Weekly article here.

Let’s hope that Quebec reconsiders some of its proposals to strike a proper balance between access to legal service and protection of the public.

We will of course keep you posted of any further developments.

In our ongoing effort to warn and educate the public about unlicensed and unethical immigration representatives, below is the latest story of more victims of unscrupulous consultants taking advantage of intending immigrants to Canada.

A recent situation in Windsor saw an Immigration Consultant Francesco Salvatore (Sam) Burgio of Amherstburg, Ontario who had his membership with Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants revoked back in 2006, allegedly charging between $2,000 and $100,000 to submit immigration applications to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. So far, the RCMP has identified eleven victims of just this one consultant and his firm.

Immigration consultants are regulated by the CSIC. However, Canada has recently seen many instances of immigration consultants not abiding by the rules or working outside of regulation bodies, which can be dangerous and very costly for immigrants.  There are only 1,600 certified immigration consultants in the country and over 200,000 immigrants coming to Canada annually.

The RCMP has decided to crack down, and Canadian Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney has expressed his appreciation to those investigating these consultants.

“Unscrupulous consultants heap misery upon their victims and pose a serious threat to the reputation of Canada’s immigration system,” said Minister Kenney in a press release at the end of April. “All levels of government and law enforcement must work together to ensure that those who commit fraud are dealt with appropriately

Similar problems have been seen in the United States, where immigration consultants have been cheating immigrants, mostly from Haiti after the earthquake, by charging them for services they aren’t even qualified to offer. Temporary protected status was offered to those from Haiti who were living in the United States illegally when the massive earthquake struck, but it’s estimated that ten per cent of these temporary protected status applications that are received by the United States government are rejected because of errors made by the consultants on the immigrant’s behalf.

When these unregulated consultants make mistakes or something goes wrong, they simply disappear and leave all of the problems (and costs) with the immigrant.

Not only are these immigrants potentially wasting their life savings, but their chances at becoming permanent residents are pretty much destroyed because of either applications that are erroneous or are not even being submitted.

We therefore urge people to proceed with caution when hiring an immigration representative. If you choose an immigration consultant, ask for references and ask to see their CSIC License.  The same goes for hiring an immigration lawyer: Their provincial license and references are the way to go.