Canadian marriage fraud is on the rise.  The Canada Border Services Agency currently has more than 30 criminal probes with relation to fraudulent marriages that took place during the past few years.  Canada’s border agency brought up the possibility that organized crime syndicates may have a hand in facilitating these fraudulent marriages in order to achieve legal status in Canada.

Upon analysis by Citizen and Immigration officials, they noticed that there were too many dubious similarities among marriage sponsorships, which led to the conclusion that most of these marriages might be fraudulent in nature.

There are two types of fraudulent marriage:

1. A Canadian sponsor with good intentions falls prey to a foreign national, who takes advantage of their union to gain permanent resident status in Canada, and the same can result to the offender being kicked out of Canada.
2. Both individuals are aware and participate, of their own free will, in a phony marriage. This is what is considered by the government to be “organized crime”.

In order to gather enough evidence to support and successfully prosecute the offending parties, the Public Safety Ministry has conceded that they require investigations, which take up a lot of resources.

More than three-dozen investigations have been initiated in the last four years, out of which seven cases have been brought before the courts, resulting in convictions for three of these cases. As of the end of 2010, more than a dozen of these cases were still pending.

The result of all of this is that Canadian marriage immigration may become more difficult and restrictive, like it is in the USA.  A move has been proposed where “conditional permanent residence” would be granted to foreigners who have been married to their Canadian sponsor for less than 2 years, just like in the US process. Upon arrival in Canada, they have to remain in that relationship for 2 more years, otherwise they risk losing their permanent residency status. For this reason you should contact our firm for help filing your Canadian marriage sponsorship application, to increase your chances of success!

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