International Students

Canadian Press: Stranded Palestinian students seeing visas processed after long wait

OTTAWA — A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Lena Diab said Tuesday that expedited visa processing for 37 Gazan students and their families stranded in third countries is now underway.

But members of Palestinian Students and Scholars at Risk, PSSAR, say the interview process for these students is more like a "witch hunt," with interviewers pressing the students on their reasons for attending state-funded universities in Gaza under a Hamas government.

During a House of Commons committee meeting on May 28, NDP MP Jenny Kwan asked Diab if Canada would make special exemptions for these students, as some European countries have done.

Diab responded by saying department officials have been told to speed up visa processing for people in Gaza, but her answer was cut short by tight time limits in that period of debate.

Diab's full answer was not captured in the House of Commons transcript but she can be heard in video of the debate saying, " … will be completed within the next 10 days." The full response is not audible.

The Canadian Press asked for clarification of Diab's comments Friday but did not receive a response until Monday night. That response discussed the interviews taking place with Palestinian students outside Gaza but did not set a firm deadline for completing the process.

Kwan said in an emailed statement that the government's clarification differs from what Diab said in the House last week. She said she heard Diab say all visas would be processed, not just applications for those outside of Gaza.

*Click image or link to read the news story - https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/palestinian-students-stranded-in-third-country-seeing-visas-processed-after-long-wait/ar-AA24EzYM?ocid=BingNewsSerp

The Varsity: Gazan students accepted to Canadian universities remain trapped in visa delays, advocates say

Advocates and members of the New Democratic Party (NDP) gathered on Parliament Hill on April 14 to escalate pressure on Ottawa over alleged discriminatory immigration delays. This comes more than a month after The Varsity reported on 12 Palestinian students admitted to U of T struggling to secure Canadian study permits.

At last month’s press conference, NDP leader Avi Lewis and Jenny Kwan, MP for Vancouver East and the party’s critic for immigration, refugees, and citizenship called on the federal government to implement new measures. They pushed to introduce flexible processing measures for Palestinian students from Gaza whose Canadian study permit applications have remained stalled for months or years.

The press conference featured speakers from Palestinian Students and Scholars at Risk (PSSAR), academic leaders, and Oxfam Canada, a global organization that works to address the root causes of poverty and inequality with a focus on women’s rights.

For many speakers, the issue was no longer simply about bureaucratic delay; it was about whether Canada’s immigration system is willing to adapt during a humanitarian catastrophe.

Biometrics remain a central barrier

A major focus of the conference was Canada’s continued enforcement of biometric requirements — fingerprints and photographs — which can only be collected outside of Gaza, usually in the West Bank or Egypt. However, the route previously used to complete the process in Egypt has remained closed since May 2024.

“The Liberal government knows full well that there are no functioning processing centers in Gaza,” Lewis said.

*Click image or link to read the full news story - https://thevarsity.ca/2026/05/21/gazan-students-accepted-to-canadian-universities-remain-trapped-in-visa-delays-advocates-say/

CPAC Headline Politics: NDP Leader Urges Action on Study Permits for Gazan Students

At a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, NDP Leader Avi Lewis and NDP MP Jenny Kwan are joined by representatives from a number of groups to discuss the filing of mandamus applications by Gazan graduate students seeking permits to study at Canadian universities. (no interpretation)

Click image or link to watch the press conference video - https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/ndp-leader-urges-action-on-study-permits-for-gazan-students--april-14-2026?id=523cdc69-199f-45a0-aa5f-359b491f2945

VIDEO: Message to Mark Carney on renewed vision for immigration and economic security

Message to Mark Carney and other party leaders, calling on a renewed vision for immigration and in the face of deepening public concern for Canada's economic security. Now is a critical time to highlight the reciprocal relationship between immigration and a strong economy, and trends in anti-immigrant sentiment, driven by disinformation, must be addressed.

CIMM#115: Pension Transferability and Access to Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF), and Delays in Permanent Residence and Visas for Hong Kongers Recent Reforms to the International Student Program

James McNamee, Director General, Family and Social Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I would say that's generally the case. If the work permit they obtained was originally connected to the public policy, that's correct. I don't know if that's the situation in all cases. In some cases, applicants may have had an LMIA-based work permit to begin with.

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC, NDP
That's right. However, under the special immigration measure, the LMIA is not required.  I have a list of applicants in those circumstances. Their work permit renewal application was rejected. They were asked to submit an LMIA, which makes no sense. I want to flag that as a deep concern now emerging for people whose open work permits are being rejected as they wait for their permanent resident status. At this rate, given the immigration levels plan numbers and the processing delays happening, and with the number of applicants in place, you can imagine that it's going to take something like eight years to get through the backlog of people getting their PR status. This means that if they are trying to get their pension, they will not be able to do so for eight years, because they are required to provide proof of permanent residence.
I want to flag this as a major concern. I hope the department will take action to fix the error being applied to applicants whose open work permits are being rejected under this stream.  Can I get a confirmation from officials that this will be undertaken?

James McNamee, Director General, Family and Social Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, that issue has been raised with the department already, and we're looking into it to see what exactly happened in those situations.

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC, NDP
Okay. Officials are aware of it, and yet it's still happening.  I have cases coming to me that are happening. I'm about to prepare a giant pile of this stuff for the minister, so I hope the officials will fix that.  The other thing related to the pension, of course, is lengthy delays for people to get their permanent status.  Based on the immigration levels plan and the number of applicants in place, is it the officials' anticipation that it will take about eight years to get those applications processed?

James McNamee, Director General, Family and Social Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We have looked at that possibility. Certainly, it will take longer than we had previously indicated to the committee. I would note that the first year of the levels plan is the fixed year. The years that follow, in this case, 2026 and 2027, are flexible. There are opportunities to adjust those numbers in the future, and that could affect that timeline. It's hard to say whether eight years will be the timeline, but it will be longer than had been originally predicted because the numbers have gone down.

Click to read the full discussion from the Committee meeting

Globe NEWS: More than 10,000 foreign student acceptance letters may be fake, says top immigration official

Enhanced checks by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada have found scores of would-be foreign students who said they had a genuine place to study may have been attaching a fraudulent acceptance letter to their application to get into Canada.

The tighter checks were introduced after a group of international students applying for permanent residence last year faced deportation because an unlicensed immigration consultant in India had submitted fake acceptance letters with their applications for study permits.

Bronwyn May, director-general of the International Students Branch at the Immigration Department, told MPs last week that since IRCC started verifying acceptance letters from colleges and universities in the past year, officials have “intercepted more than 10,000 potentially fraudulent letters of acceptance.”

She said 93 per cent of the 500,000 acceptance letters attached to study permit applications the department checked in the past 10 months had been verified as genuine by a college or university.

But 2 per cent were not authentic, 1 per cent of applicants had had their place cancelled by a college or university, while in other cases, colleges and universities failed to respond to say whether the letters offering applicants a place to study were genuine.

She told the Commons immigration committee that the IRCC was making further inquiries into the source of the fraudulent letters.

NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan said “the revelation that the government recently uncovered 10,000 fake admissions letter is extremely alarming.”

“It’s unconscionable that the Liberals allowed unscrupulous actors to exploit and abuse international students for so long,” she said in an e-mailed statement. “Not only does the government need to identify who those actors are, they need to also identify the institutions that may be collaborating in any fraud schemes.

“It is important to not just protect the integrity of the program, Canada also has a responsibility to ensure that international students in Canada that have been defrauded are protected.”

Ottawa launched a probe into 2,000 suspicious cases involving students from India, China and Vietnam last year. It found that around 1,485 had been issued bogus documents to come to Canada by immigration consultants abroad.

Many were refused entry to Canada after their letters of acceptance from colleges were found to be fake, but others had already arrived.

Since December last year, colleges and universities have been required by IRCC to verify letters of acceptance through an online portal. On Jan. 30 this year, the measure was extended to study permit applications and extensions submitted from within Canada.

CIMM#114: Recent Reforms to the International Student Program

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
Aside from looking at patterns of potential violators—the groups and organizations taking advantage of students with these fraudulent letters of acceptance—will you be including in the analysis what types of institutions are being utilized for these fraudulent letters? In other words, is it private institutions versus public institutions, colleges versus universities and so on? Will that be part of the analysis?

Bronwyn May, Director General, International Students Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
It's not always the case that a letter originates from an institution. We would need to look at various possible sources.

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
Maybe I can reframe that.
Obviously, as these are fraudulent letters of acceptance, they wouldn't be issued by the institutions. However, regarding the list of institutions being used for the purpose of these fraudulent letters, I would be interested in obtaining information to determine what percentage are private institutions and public institutions, how many of them are colleges, how many of them are universities and so on. That will tell us very specific information that I think is important when trying to tackle fraudulent activities.

 

Bronwyn May, Director General, International Students Branch, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I completely agree. That's a very important line of analysis.

 

Jenny Kwan Vancouver East, BC
I will make the further request to make sure you share this information with the committee. I'll argue that this information should not be kept secret. It should be public and transparent—shared with all Canadians—so that we're aware of what the landscape is and of how international students are being taken advantage of. With respect to that analysis, will there be information and data on what countries are being targeted?

Click to read the full discussion from the Committee meeting

CIMM#93: Closed Work Permits and Temporary Foreign Workers and Briefing on Recent Changes to International Student Policy and Plans for Future Measures

On the question around student housing, I absolutely think that it is essential for institutions and provinces do their part and I think that the federal government should show leadership and perhaps initiate a program wherein the federal government contributes a third of the funding, institutions provide a third of the funding, and the provinces and territories provide a third of the funding towards the creation of student housing, both for international students and domestic students. That way you can have a robust plan to address the housing needs of the students.

I'm going to park that for a minute and quickly get into the students who were subject to fraud. We have a situation in which students have now been cleared and found to be genuine by the task force, but they have not gotten their passports back yet. I don't know what the holdup is, and I wonder if the minister can comment on that.

Second, there are students who are still waiting to be evaluated by the task force, and the task force work can't proceed because they might be waiting for a date for the IRB to assess the question on their permit on whether or not it was genuine or whether or not there was misrepresentation. They are consequently in a situation in which people are just chasing their tails and they can't get to the task force.

On that question, will the minister agree that instead of making people go through that process with the IRB, the task force evaluation can move forward first so that they can be found to be either a genuine student or not a genuine student?

 

CIMM#91: Government's Response to the Final Report of the Special Committee on Afghanistan and Committee Business

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank the committee members for supporting the last motion.

I have another motion that I'd like to move at this point. Notice has been given for it. It reads as follows:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee invite the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities and relevant officials together for two hours, or invite the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship with relevant officials for two hours, and the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities to appear separately with relevant officials for one hour to update the committee on:

(a) the work of the task force addressing the exploitation scheme targeting international students as many students are still reporting that they are in limbo and have not heard back from officials about their status;

(b) the measures taken by IRCC and institutions to help prevent and protect international students from fraud schemes;

(c) the justification to increase the financial requirements for international students by more than 100% to $20,635;

(d) the justification for putting a cap on international study permits; and

(e) the plans to address the housing crisis for international students and efforts made to collaborate with provinces, territories and post-secondary institutions.

I think the motion is self-explanatory on all elements, and I think we would benefit from having the two ministers appear before our committee. We've also deliberated this issue at length at another meeting, so in the interest of time, I won't revisit all of those points.

I hope committee members will support this motion.

 

City News: Canada asked to speed up review of international students defrauded by recruiters

NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who is the critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and who represents the riding of Vancouver East, says she’s heard of dozens of students who are still waiting to for their cases to be reviewed.

“Through the work of the task force, officials confirmed 285 students were impacted by scammers. To date, less than half of the cases have been reviewed leaving many students in limbo. This is unacceptable and the Liberals must act to fix this,” she said on Oct. 27.

While she applauded the federal action, Kwan says this situation likely could have been avoided.