A crisis is brewing in Alberta’s immigration system as temporary foreign workers are being conned out of thousands of dollars in fees. Find out about the mounting calls for reform and the exploitation.

Immigration specialists in Alberta are warning of a concerning trend that targets temporary foreign workers. Due to economic expansion, Alberta’s population is growing, and with it, there are more and more reports of a long-running scam that is harming vulnerable workers and damaging Canada’s immigration system.

Employers, immigration advisors, and recruiters work together to offer foreign workers lucrative job possibilities in exchange for extortionate fees. This is the main component of the plan. Labor market impact assessments (LMIAs), federal paperwork necessary for employing foreign workers, are at the center of this scam.

Even though it is strictly forbidden to charge for LMIAs, employees are forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars by taking advantage of faults and weaknesses in the system.

Over the course of three decades, Anila Umar, CEO of a center for newcomers’ help, has seen this exploitation change. She points out that a lot of people, who are not familiar with Canadian immigration restrictions, unwittingly invest their life savings in these promises, only to find out when they get there that the employment offers were phony.

Due to the tremendous population expansion in Alberta, this problem, which was previously more common in larger areas like Toronto and Vancouver, has now expanded throughout the region. According to Umar, there is a constant flow of victims requesting help, underscoring the gravity and growing frequency of these frauds.

Legal professionals denounce the practice and characterize severe instances as akin to contemporary slavery. Workers frequently experience further exploitation or deceit because they are burdened with debt from the original payments. Jatin Shory, an immigration lawyer in Calgary, describes instances in which employees were threatened with deportation unless they repaid costs with deductions from their salaries.

The success of initiatives to stop this exploitation has been patchy. Although new laws seek to improve oversight and punish employers responsible, there are still issues with controlling the global networks that support these frauds. Vulnerable workers’ lives and livelihoods are impacted by fraud despite efforts to stop it, such as fines and tighter oversight.

The government of Alberta has recognized the issue and reported an increase in complaints from temporary foreign workers. The accusations indicate a need for more stringent enforcement and improved protections for these workers, as they vary from probable cases of human trafficking to exploitation.

Stakeholders support stricter regulatory frameworks, expedited investigations, and higher penalties to discourage non-compliance as Canada struggles with these issues. Ensuring equitable treatment and protection for all workers, irrespective of their country of origin, is the aim, while also protecting the integrity of Canada’s immigration system.