Woman faces removal from Canada after college admission letter turned out to be fake

What Karamjeet Kaur wanted most when she arrived in Canada in 2018 was to live independently and be treated like everybody else.

But after completing post-secondary studies in Edmonton and holding down a job for years, the 24-year-old woman from India now faces expulsion.

An admission letter to an Ontario college, which helped her get her study permit, turned out to be fake. The letter was procured by a private immigration agent. 

Kaur says she only learned the letter wasn't real last year when she was applying to stay in Canada permanently.

"It all happened because we trust[ed] someone," Kaur said in an interview this month.

Kaur grew up in a small community in Punjab in northern India. A childhood accident left her with limited blood circulation on her right side, she said, which can make it difficult to move her right arm and leg.

"There was so much discrimination, especially with the women, and I was a disabled woman so I face a lot of discrimination," Kaur said.

She attracted stares wherever she went and was harassed by classmates at school, she said. 

Her disability made it unlikely she'd ever be able to get a good job or find a spouse in India,she said.

Her family decided to seek out the help of an immigration agent.

Her father, as head of the family, handled the discussions, she said. The agent took payment and Kaur's information.

Neither Kaur's father, a farmer, or her mother, a homemaker, have more than a Grade 10 level education. The family did not own a computer and had little insight into immigration processes, says Kaur's lawyer, Manraj Sidhu.

Three days before her flight to Canada in April 2018, the agent returned and provided Kaur with an acceptance letter from Seneca College in Toronto. 

Kaur made the trip, presenting the letter to border officials who approved it and granted her a study permit.