Canadian schools listed almost 50,000 foreign students as ‘no shows’
Close to 50,000 international students who received study permits to come to Canada were reported as “no-shows” at the colleges and universities where they were supposed to be taking their courses, according to government figures for two months last spring.
Numbers obtained by The Globe and Mail show that the non-compliant students made up 6.9 per cent of the total number of international students recorded by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
Universities and colleges are required by the immigration department to report twice a year on whether international students are enrolled and going to class in compliance with their study permits.
The International Student Compliance Regime, implemented in 2014, was designed to help spot bogus students and assist provinces in identifying questionable schools.
In March and April of 2024, colleges and universities reported to IRCC on students from 144 countries. The top 10 countries of student origin with the greatest number of “no-shows” that spring had widely ranging non-compliance rates.
They included 2.2 per cent for Philippines (representing 688 no-show students); 6.4 per cent for China (4,279 no-shows); 11.6 per cent for Iran (1,848 no-shows); and 48.1 per cent for Rwanda (802 no-shows).
Henry Lotin, a former federal economist and expert on immigration, said one way to dampen abuse of the system would be to require international students to pay fees upfront before coming to Canada.
Of the total no-shows, almost 20,000 from India – 5.4 per cent of the total number of Indian students tracked by IRCC – were reported as non-compliant with their student visas and not attending schools where they were meant to be studying.
Indian law-enforcement officials said last month that they are investigating alleged links between dozens of colleges in Canada taking in international students and two “entities” in India alleged to be involved in illegally transporting people across the Canada-U.S. border. Instead of studying in Canada, the students allegedly crossed the border illegally into the United States.
The RCMP said in a statement that it has “reached out to India through its International Policing Liaison Officers to seek additional information on investigations.”
Mr. Lotin, founder of the consultancy firm Integrative Trade and Economics, said most of the Indian students who were no-shows at their schools had likely not slipped over the border into the U.S. but were probably still in Canada, working and aiming to settle here. There was a record increase in the number of international students claiming asylum in Canada last year.
Mr. Lotin said a “very small subset were going to the States. Most aspire to work and become permanent residents of Canada.”
Immigration Minister Marc Miller toughened rules for international students in November in an attempt to clamp down on abuse. Colleges and universities that fail to submit compliance reports could now be suspended from accepting international students for up to a year.
IRCC conducts further checks on students who appear to be non-compliant with the terms of their study permits that are issued to students who have been accepted at a Canadian college or university.
“Canada has seen an increase in exploitation of its temporary resident visas, including students. What was once a low-risk temporary resident program is now being assessed as higher-risk given changes to the global migration context, including the growing number of conflicts and crises, increased abuse and fraud, and increased organized smuggling,” said Renée LeBlanc Proctor, spokesperson for Mr. Miller.
“Canada is also aware of the reports of individuals crossing irregularly into the U.S. from Canada, often with the help of facilitation or smuggling networks.”
In total, 49,676 international students enrolled in Canadian colleges and universities apparently failed to adhere to the terms of their visas and turn up to study, according to the IRCC figures. In addition to that, colleges and universities failed to report on the status of a further 23,514 international students – representing 3.3 per cent in the IRCC records.
“In broad terms this shows that at least 10 per cent of student visa holders are unaccounted for,” said Mr. Lotin. “For the first time, we have definitive data. There are still questions about where all student visa holders are.”
Another problem that Mr. Lotin pointed out is a difference between Statistics Canada and the immigration department in how numbers of international students are tracked.
“Statistics Canada, which has its own methodology of counting population, indicates there were over one million valid student holders in April. But the IRCC data that looks at enrolment has a significantly smaller number of international students. This is a gap that suggests that an even larger number of students are not accounted for than the compliance data suggests.”
“There is an urgent need for better and more transparent data,” he added.
Tom Kmiec, Conservative immigration critic, blamed the government for mismanaging the immigration system.
Winnipeg immigration lawyer David Matas said foreign agents or consultants, rather than student applicants, were behind the abuse of study permits.
“One change, which would stand against this sort of fraud, is to allow applicants to use the services of only Canadian lawyers and consultants, both of whom are regulated,” he said.
This article was first reported by The Star