Marriage Made In Haven
Always sensitive to extraneous cultural imperatives, Ottawa has been indulgent of arranged marriage. Sure, it's a convention that conjures up the Dark Ages, but some people like it. Thus, the ethnic media bristle with ads for citizenship by nuptials, first cousins indemnify family obligations, sons and daughters are auctioned off to the highest bidder, but hey, we can't celebrate multiculturalism if we go about imposing post-Enlightenment standards. When the time comes to marry, who wants someone Canadianized? Shop at "home" for a nice, unassimilated spouse. Intelligent countries tend to regard such unions as innately suspicious and scrutinize transnational romances with a fine tooth comb -- asking couples intimate, probing questions about each other ranging from favourite toothpaste brands to preferred sleeping positions to determine whether the primary purpose of the visa application was a marriage of convenience or one based on true love. Regrettably, Canada extends right of entry and fast track citizenship even to fiancées and same sex "partners." Now, it's tricky enough to find your soul mate in the real world, but where money, citizenship and sponsorship obligations hang in the balance -- well, any semi-functional imbecile might anticipate trouble. Not Ottawa!
It therefore must have been startling to discover that jilted immigrants were clubbing together to sue us for permitting them to indulge throwback predilections: "A Brampton man is attempting to launch a class-action lawsuit against the federal government for failing to investigate and deport foreigners who allegedly trick Canadians into marriages of convenience. It is unknown how many cases there are nationally, but Immigration Canada's branch office in Mississauga [alone!] has about 600 files on immigration fraud cases. ... Saranjeet Benet, a 37-year-old electrician, and his father Sampuran Benet, founded Canadians Against Immigration Fraud and are asking the Federal Court of Canada for permission to pursue a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Canadian sponsors who married foreigners in good faith but were jilted and end up with emotional scars and financial losses. ... Saranjeet Benet came to Canada as an infant but returned to India in search of a bride. He and Opinder Kaur Saini were married in the Punjab in November 2003. Three years later, she arrived as a permanent resident through the spousal sponsorship program, but left him a month later, on Jan. 15, 2007. Saini moved in with her parents and sister in Brampton. Benet claims in court records filed in November in the immigration fraud lawsuit that Saini had no interest in consummating the marriage. [Her indifference to his charms is so patently our fault, we feel just awful!] However, in documents filed in response to annulment proceedings, Saini, 33, says he abused her upon her arrival in Canada." (Toronto Star, March 31, 2009)
"A rising trend in fake marriages by would-be immigrants, perhaps criminally organized, is raising alarms within the federal Immigration department. 'It's a trend that we're starting to see and the department is concerned that there is organized fraud around that movement,' Claudette Deschênes, Assistant Deputy Minister of Immigration, told a House of Commons committee this morning. Deschênes was replying to New Democrat MP Olivia Chow, who was inquiring about the nearly 50 per cent refusal rate for spousal applications from places such as China, western Africa and Hong Kong." (Toronto Star, December 1, 2009)
"When Canadian immigration officials in New Delhi began to notice the same guests appearing in photos of different weddings submitted as evidence for sponsoring overseas brides and grooms to Canada, an alarm went off. Officers at the visa post pulled out all the other spousal sponsorship files to compare notes, and further investigations would discover several local temples were actually involved in 'rent-a-guest' operations, setting up wedding ceremonies for immigration purposes. 'At a price, you could get packaged services with a wedding ceremony where people stand in as guests and relatives, posing for photos as in a real marriage,' said immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who obtained an internal government report on these allegations through an access to information request. ... Citizenship and Immigration Canada, according to news reports, is now sending investigative teams around the world, especially to high-fraud regions such as India, China and Vietnam, to gather intelligence on staged marriages. ... While fraudulent marriages are not a new phenomenon, the investigative team, said to be made up of five undercover investigators, is a new tool for potential prosecution against the Canadian collaborators. [Of course, the primary motive is not necessarily unrequited love.] A Canadian sponsor is stuck with the financial obligation to a foreign spouse required under the sponsorship for up to three years. If the spouse ends up on government assistance, the sponsor must repay the government and could risk being denied future sponsorship applications." (Toronto Star, May 23, 2008)
