Immigration.ca - Canada Immigration News - May 2008
More and more foreigners are entering into fraudulent marriages in an attempt to gain status in Canada. For years, immigration officials have been forced to scrutinize wedding photos and question ceremony guests in order to weed out the scams.
To assist the immigration officers in this often difficult task, the Conservative government has begun sending out teams of investigators whose aim is to snuff out and extinguish the practice in countries abroad, according to a story that ran in last week’s Globe and Mail.
The teams are composed of up to five officials. Their role is to discover and teach the visa officers about marriage in their designated country so that cultural traditions, such as arranged marriages, are not as easily mistaken for signs of illegitimacy.
Over the years Canadian officials have witnessed a wide range of techniques employed by fraudsters, from faking photos all the way to conceiving children. In some cases only the foreigner is aware of the fraud, and, once their status has been obtained, they leave behind a broken-hearted Canadian who is still socially and financially responsible for their spouse.
On the other hand, sometimes the one committing fraud is the Canadian. In some Indian communities, for example, women are being warned of Indo-Canadian men traveling there seeking a wife only to collect the dowry and leave her behind.
Though experts believe that India, Vietnam and China are the main countries to be targeted by these investigatory teams (due to their high portion of immigrants), the government has yet to confirm this, and likely will not, for diplomatic reasons.
Source: The Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
LAC.20080521.MARRIAGES21/EmailTPStory/National
