Feds to make international student program announcement in Brampton

Immigration Minister Marc Miller will be in Brampton to announce plans to strengthen Canada’s International Student Program.

The announcement is expected around 10:45 a.m. on Friday at Sheridan College in Brampton and comes after some international students have faced increased hardships in recent months, like struggles with housing and threats of deportation.

In 2014, Canada set a target to increase international student enrolment from about 240,000 to more than 450,000 by 2022. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has reported that there were more than 807,000 international study permit holders in Canada in December.

The federal government said earlier this year it was considering a cap on the number of international students coming to Canada, a possibility that was cause for concern for the immigration consultants in Brampton.

Hundreds of international students were facing deportation in June after applying for visas through a now-shuttered consulting company in India that reportedly gave them fake offers of acceptance without their knowledge.

Sean Fraser, who was at that time the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, walked back the deportations “if the facts of an individual case are clear that an international student came to Canada with a genuine intent to study, and without knowledge of the use of fraudulent documentation.”