Posted on 08/01/2007 7:58:03 AM PDT by BGHater
There are so many people in B.C. scamming Canada's foreign student-visa program - from bogus students to shady schools - that authorities can only investigate about five per cent of the cases, according to an internal government report obtained by CanWest News Service.
"It is impossible to actively pursue all the cases ... with the current resourcing levels assigned to the project," warned an August 2006 report prepared by the Canada Border Services Agency.
The number of foreign students admitted to B.C. on student visas has nearly doubled over the past decade, from just 22,000 in 1995 to 43,000 in 2005.
The report stated the vast majority of students are genuine.
But the agency has also identified "several hundred cases of alleged fraud" in B.C. in recent years - people with no intention of studying who simply use the visa as a way into the country.
If the CBSA can prove that someone is in the country illegally, it can then seek to have that person deported. But the report noted that the number of fraud cases is so high that "it is realistically expected that approximately five per cent ... can be effectively pursued."
As of last August, said the report, the CBSA had just three enforcement officers and one intelligence analyst assigned to work through a backlog of more than 550 student-fraud cases in B.C.
CBSA spokeswoman Paula Shore said student-visa cases are generally given lower priority than those involving national security or criminal activity.
One of the problems in combatting student-visa fraud, according to the CBSA report, is that while immigration officers have the power to place conditions on foreign students to attend school, they often don't.
"The effect of this is that there is no requirement that a student actually attend school despite the fact that the individual is in Canada to study," the report stated.
While most B.C. schools are innocent victims of fraud - admitting foreign students who simply never show up for class - the CBSA report stated others are "visa mills ... whose sole purpose is to facilitate the issuance of study permits".
But canada has the money to put an armada in the arctic! Oh, yes. Bugger fighting terrorism, just keep the arctic safely in canada’s hot little hands. (Flak vest and kevlar helmet on; trusty loaded; I’m ready.) RATS! I almost forgot to mention the Van Doos with their shiny new french general in Afghanistan!! Damn!
Yeah, get back to us when you stop letting a million Mexicans wander across your southern border every year.
Ping.
Are you suggesting that we have no business in Afghanistan. If so, would you also suggest pulling Brit or Dutch forces out? Perhaps US forces should also go home.
As to the so-called French general:
The general being rotated into Afghanistan is a Canadian general, relieving a Canadian general in a normal rotation into the hottest theatre in Afghanistan.
The general rotating in speaks French. So what? Canada is a bilingual country (anglophone and francophone). The US is rapidly beconing a bilingual country (hispanic and english).
The battle group being rotated in is build around a Canadian infantry battalion.
There are and have been Vandoos in Kandahar in combat capacities even during the rotations based on the Patricias and the RCRs
Sir, I will do that at my earliest opportunity, believe me. And you won’t like it.
Unfortunately I keep forgetting the maxim "Don't feed the trolls"
I am suggesting that you have a lot more business in Afghanistan than you are doing. And you and I both know that this is a french general, brought in there now to accommodate the Van Doos. This was, I believe, mentioned on the CBC news the other day - in the nicest of terms, of course. french in canada does not mean france, it means quebec.
And a Canadian.
As a Canadian he ought to know better when he denigrates a proud regiment with an enviable list of battle honours from The Great War to Korea and whose members are serving professionally and well in Afghanistan.
I had also thought it to be a liberal pathology to feel the need to denigrate deployed military units.
It is. Just because he joined FR, doesn't mean he is a Conservative.
I have no trouble imagining him toiling away at an NDP office downtown.
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