‘Alarming trend’ of more international students claiming asylum: minister

A “growing number” of international students are claiming asylum in order to stay in Canada after being allowed in on student visas, Immigration Minister Marc Miller says, calling it an “alarming trend.”

Speaking to Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block, Miller said those claimants are using the international student program as a “backdoor entry into Canada,” often to lower their tuition fees, and that universities and colleges must improve their screening and monitoring practices to weed out bad actors.

He said his department is studying the issue and suggested further reforms to the program were being explored.

Miller made the comments after Stephenson asked if Muhammad Shahzeb Khan — a Pakistani man arrested in Quebec this month while allegedly plotting a terrorist attack against Jews in New York City — had claimed asylum after entering Canada on a student visa in 2023.

Miller said he could not comment on Khan’s case as it’s before the courts, but was then asked how many international students in total have claimed asylum.

“There’s a growing number, Mercedes, and it’s frankly quite alarming given the volumes of people that come to this country, in theory, with the proper financial capacity to live and to pay their tuition fees, which are four times what Canadians pay,” the minister said.

“We see that it happens often within the first year of the time they’re here… often for less valid reasons than than others, notably to drop the tuition fee down to Canadian rates. There’s some opportunism that’s being used and exploited there.”

6:21 Federal Immigration Minister on Canada further limiting international students

Statistics Canada says while Canadian graduate and undergraduate students pay on average between $7,300 to $7,600 annually in tuition fees, international graduate students paid over $23,000 last year. For international undergraduate students, the annual number is over $40,000.

The government announced last week it will further reduce the number of international student permits Canada issues next year by about 10 per cent, after capping levels 35 per cent below previous intake levels.

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The aim of the federal cap is to reduce the number of temporary residents in Canada from 6.5 per cent of the total population to five per cent amid a population explosion and strains on housing and public services.

Miller has called on universities and colleges to do their part by improving their recruiting and admitting practices, and reiterated those calls in The West Block interview.

“This is a program aimed at international excellence and not a backdoor entry into Canada for whatever reason,” he said.

“It’s part and parcel of the reforms that I’ve been doing over the better part of the year to make sure that we have a better international student visa system, including detecting fraud at the outset — which is immensely critical — but also looking at … the impact and the long-term pain that’s created, including the burden of making false or less-credible asylum claims.”

Universities have said international student enrolment is down 45 per cent this year — “far greater” than what Ottawa’s caps aimed for.

Canada’s security screening systems are under scrutiny after the arrest of Khan and a father and son from Egypt, Ahmed and Mostafa Eldidi, charged in July with allegedly plotting an ISIS attack in Toronto.

During an appearance at the House of Commons national security and public safety committee Thursday, Miller said the government is “confident in… the screening that operates in our country.”

1:45 Immigration minister grilled about terror suspects entering Canada

Speaking to Stephenson, Miller again said he is confident but acknowledged more needs to be done.

“Am I entirely satisfied of where we are today? No, I don’t think anyone in my position would pretend that, nor would the public safety minister,” he said.

“We need to have a security apparatus that is constantly evolving, but we are much better off today than we were even years a few years ago before we were using biometrics, for example. And I think that’s something that Canadians can take some comfort in.”

Miller said he’s ordered his deputy minister to do an internal review of what happened in recent incidents, including the entries of Khan and the Eldidis, and produce a report within the next 30 days that will identify “deficiencies that we need to fix” and if the issue is “systemic.”

The minister would not comment on specific allegations to how the alleged terror suspects were able to avoid detection or raise red flags with border officials.

But he added border security “is not a uniquely Canadian challenge” and that the government must work with the U.S. and Mexico to evolve its security parameters, noting Mostafa Eldidi entered Canada by land from the U.S.

“I can never be satisfied,” he said. “We have to constantly make sure that we’re working to thwart these threats to Canada, because there are people that don’t have the best intentions of Canada at heart that are trying to get into the country.”