Canada and India will join hands to stop immigration fraud, which often costs Indian immigrants their life savings and leaves them as slaves to organised crime gangs, Jason Kenney said.
Canada and India will join hands to stop immigration fraud, which often costs Indian immigrants their life savings and leaves them as slaves to organised crime gangs, Canadian minister of Immigration Jason Kenney has said.
Kenney, who just returned from India, Hong Kong and China, said that he received strong support from Indian authorities and met with home minister P Chidambaram, external affairs minister (state) Preneet Kaur and overseas Indians minister Vyalar Ravi during his stay in New Delhi.
Kenney said that he's more optimistic now because he has received assurances from Indian authorities that the New Delhi will introduce a law this year that will improve regulation of immigration agents.
"The challenge for us is to simply put on the agenda at the national level, what is going on," Kenney told the media in Canada.
"One of the things I raised with them that I think is very troubling is the connection between this kind of immigration fraud and human trafficking."
Kenney said Canada has increased efforts to attract skilled labour from India.
For many years, the vast majority of permanent resident visas given to India were in the so-called family class visa category.
But that's changing. In 2005, 55% of the 27,193 permanent resident visas granted to Indians were family-class visas while 27% were economic class visas given to skilled workers.
But from January to March 2010, family class visas accounted for 27% of the 8,288 permanent resident visas issued, while economic class visas accounted for 71%. Statistics also show Canada's ties to India are broadening outside Punjab.
In 2005, 41% of permanent resident visas were given to Indians from Punjab. But during the first quarter of this year, that had slipped to 34%.
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