The immigration minister arrived in New Delhi, India to take the issue of immigration fraud. He is likely to ask India to introduce strong measures to check the rising frauds related to immigration and also to share such details with Canada.
Kenney arrived in India from Paris where he had meetings with various representatives from different nations like Germany, Italy, France, the US and Britain to fight fraudulent immigration consultants involved in the business of human smuggling.
He had a meeting with Vayalar Ravi, the Overseas Indian Affairs Minister and asked to extend full cooperation on challenges faced by India as well as Canada due to immigration scams. Only then can the governments of Canada and India catch unscrupulous fraudulent immigration consultants who cheat innocent migrants, stated Kenney.
He welcomed the approach extended by Mr. Ravi in this regard while adding that growing rates of immigration from India to Canada is of great benefit for Canada.
Mr. Kenney said that the total number of Canada visas issued in the last year has increased notably adding that a large number of applications for Canada visas received by Canadian High Commission and its various embassies are fake. Hence, there is a need to control this at the earliest.
The menace of illegal immigration can be controlled only if help is ensured from all states, Mr. Ravi asserted. He added that an immigration management authority is in the process of being formulated by India to make the immigration process more transparent and efficient.
Canadian immigration minister refuted the issue that a large number of Canada visa applications of Indians have been rejected by Canada immigration department and said that all bonafide applications are approved by Canada.
Mr. Kenney said that the approval rate for Canada visa applications has, in fact, increased significantly in the last two years as the immigration to Canada from India is growing by 15 percent.
He also informed that there are nearly 1 million Indo-Canadians in Canada and said that a Canada has begun a new service for facilitating employers requiring traveling to Canada and back (to India).