Federal Government Imposing Visa Requirements on St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland

The tropical Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia was one of the countries that lost its visa-exempt status in Canada on September 12th due to what CIC said were high levels of asylum claims and unreliable passports

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) announced this week that citizens of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (St. Vincent), Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland will require a visa to travel to Canada, effective 12:01 AM EDT on September 12th.

Individuals who held passports from these countries were previously visa exempt, but due to what CIC says is unreliability in the authenticity of travel documents from these countries, the exemption is being repealed. It was found that citizens from these countries were able to legally change their names and acquire new passports, allowing them to re-enter Canada with new passports after being deported from Canada as security risks.

Visa requirements were also imposed due to the excessively high number of asylum seekers from St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Namibia. The worst offender was Namibia, from which an astonishing 71 percent of those who visited Canada claimed refugee status in 2011, according to CIC.

Commenting on the visa imposition, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said: “These changes are necessary because all the countries concerned have an immigration violation rate of over thirty percent, well above the level we deem acceptable for countries benefiting from a visa exemption.”

CIC said that the Canadian government regularly reviews the visa requirements it places on other countries, and that countries are aware of the conditions they must meet to receive a visa exemption.

Immigration Minister Announces 3,100 Having Citizenship Revoked, 11,000 Under Investigation

Nearly 11,000 individuals are under investigation by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for submitting fraudulent proof of residence to meet requirements for maintaining permanent residency status and qualifying for Canadian citizenship (Citizenship and Immigration Canada)

The investigation into citizenship and permanent residence fraud has expanded to nearly 11,000 people, and federal immigration authorities are in the process of revoking the citizenship of 3,100 individuals, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews announced today.

“Today’s announcement is the end-result of the hard work done by the RCMP and CBSA, and they should be congratulated for their dedicated effort in bringing these charges forward. These efforts reinforce our government’s commitment to protecting the integrity of our immigration system,” commented Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

The citizenship and permanent residence fraud constituted a permanent resident paying crooked consultants up to $25,000 for a family of five over four or more years to fabricate falsified proof of Canadian residence, in order to qualify for Canadian citizenship or maintain their permanent resident status.

Individuals falsify proof of residence to meet the requirement under Canadian law for permanent residents to live in Canada for three years out of the preceding four years to be granted Canadian citizenship, and also to meet the requirement to reside in Canada for two out of five years to retain their status as permanent residents.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) said that it is currently investigating 5,000 cases of permanent residents who are believed to be engaged in residence fraud. CIC believes most of these individuals are currently outside the country.

According to CIC, almost 1,800 applicants under investigation have abandoned their citizenship applications as information about the investigation has been publicized.

Border Services Report Says Bogus Refugees From Hungary Could Cost Canada $222 Million A Year

Bill C-31 is expected to reduce the costs imposed by bogus refugee claimants

A recent report by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) estimates that each refugee claimant who has their application rejected by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), due either to lack of evidence of persecution in their home country or failing to show up to refugee hearings, costs the Canadian government over $50,000.

The country that produces the highest number of refugee claimants in Canada is Hungary, where 4,442 of the people who applied for refugee status in Canada last year hail from.

Virtually all applicants from Hungary had their refugee claim rejected, but before their cases were processed and they were deported, the cost of the welfare and health care provided to them by the Canadian government could have amounted to over $222 million last year alone according to the report, based on the $50,000 cost per failed claimant estimate.

Not only do provincial governments pay claimants welfare while they are in Canada, but also sometimes for up to seven months after they have left the country due to insufficient information sharing between the CBSA, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and provincial social services authorities, according to the report.

Most of the claimants from Hungary are Romani, a stateless ethnic minority who reside primarily in Europe and who are sometimes referred to as gypsies -though this term is considered derogotary by many Roma organizations.

The Canadian government has said that 40 percent of Hungarian Roma who claim refugee status are from a town called Miskolc, where a large-scale organized effort to send people to Canada to claim refugee status is centered in.

The federal government has taken steps to reduce bogus refugee claims and the costs they impose on federal and provincial governments in Canada with the passing of Bill C-31 in June.

The legislation gave the Department of Citizenship and Immigration the discretion to create a list of ‘safe’ democratic countries with a reputation of respecting human rights, and the authority to reject refugee claims by individuals from those countries and deport the claimants within 45 days, rather than the typical 1,000 days that refugee claims take to process.

This would enable Canada to place Hungary on the safe list and reduce the processing time of refugee claims from that country.

The bill also eliminated free pharmaceutical, vision and dental care for refugee claimants, which CIC argued was fair given those services are not available to Canadian citizens through Medicare.