Immigration Minister Marc Miller has sounded the alarm on the “growing number” of international students on Canadian soil claiming asylum. It’s an “alarming trend,” said Miller. People allowed into Canada on student visas who are now facing deportation due to an expiring visa, have been claiming asylum in order to be allowed to stay in the country. People with asylum status are granted lower tuition fees — equivalent to that of Canadian taxpayers. Miller speaking to Global News in an interview that aired Sunday evening complained his own department through the international student program opened a “backdoor entry into Canada.” The colleges and universities accepting international students have to better their screening and monitoring protocols to identify those abusing the system, he said, adding his department is looking into how the program could be improved. . The topic came up after Miller was asked about suspected terrorist Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a Pakistani national arrested on terrorist charges in Quebec earlier in September, who entered Canada on a student visa in 2023 and then claimed asylum. Khan was the third in three months to be charged with terror crimes. Ahmed and Mostafa Eldidi, a father and son from Egypt, were charged in July in connection with a ISIS attack plot in Toronto.Miller, unable to comment on the Khan case as it is before the courts, was then asked how many claimants there have been. “There’s a growing number, 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,” said Miller. “We see that it happens often within the first year of the time they’re here … often for less valid reasons than others, notably to drop the tuition fee down to Canadian rates. There’s some opportunism that’s being used and exploited there.” .Miller denies immigration screening fail despite three terrorism charges in three months.Canadian graduate and undergraduate students on average pay about $7,300 to $7,600 a year in tuition. Their international counterparts pay much higher — $23,000 for graduate tuition and $40,000 for undergraduate programs.The Trudeau Liberals last week promised a 10% reduction in the number of international student visas issued next year.“This is a program aimed at international excellence and not a backdoor entry into Canada for whatever reason,” Miller said in the Global interview. “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.” .StatsCan: One-third of Canadians will be foreign-born by 2041.Despite his remarks, on Thursday appearing at the Commons National Security and Public Safety Committee, Miller said he was “confident” in the immigration “screening that operates in our country.”“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 in the interview Sunday. “We need to have a security apparatus that is constantly evolving, but we are much better off today than we were even a few years ago before we were using biometrics, for example. And I think that’s something that Canadians can take some comfort in.”“I can never be satisfied. 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.”.Bank of Canada warns high volume of immigrants driving up cost of rent
