As recently reported by The Globe & Mail – A Federal Court judge has ruled against more than 1,000 wealthy Chinese who tried to immigrate to Canada under the newly terminated Immigrant Investor Program. The inventors then later attempted to seek legal compensation for their inconvenience.
Immigrant Investor Law Suits Get Dismissed
“[T]here is no absolute right to the issuance of a visa following the mere fact of having made an application,” Justice Mary Gleason wrote in her ruling.
“Would-be investor immigrants to Canada had no legitimate expectation of a visa or Canadian residency, and that the government acted within the law”.
What Started the Immigrant Investor Program Law Suit?
The initial problem began as Canada’s Immigrant Investor Program became increasingly popular with China’s affluent; the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong was bombarded by applicants. The backlog would reach more than 80,000 applications, with about 80 % of them filed in Hong Kong alone.
First, the program was closed to new applicants as it was inundated. However; in the last federal budget, the government decided to squash the program entirely and said the backlog of applicants would be eliminated. This decision prompting more than 1,000 court orders filed on behalf of wealthy Chinese, as well as some others from Turkey and elsewhere, who argued that their applications should still be processed.
This week, all cases were dismissed by a Federal Court.
We will report more on this and other related immigration stories as the information becomes available.
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Michael Niren
Mr. Niren is CEO of VisaPlace LLC and the President and Managing Partner of VisaPlace Legal Canada, an immigration law firm based in Toronto, and VisaPlace Legal US a law firm registered in The District of Columbia, USA. Mr. Niren is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Canadian Bar Association’s Citizenship and Immigration Section, American Lawyers Association, and an Associate Member of the American Bar Association.
