Using Marriage to enter Canada...

Jilted spouses on warpath
Foreign partners used marriage to enter
Canada
By SARAH GREEN, TORONTO SUN

Cindy once believed she was the only victim
of marriage fraud.
The 33-year-old East York woman soon learned
there were many other wives and husbands
jilted by spouses who used marriage as a means
to immigrate to Canada.
Now Cindy is urging federal MPs as well as
other victims to band together to ensure that
deceitful spouses are deported and that no one
else can use marriage as a shortcut to permanent
residency in Canada.
"I've been living and breathing this every second
of the last three months," said Cindy, who asked
that her full name not be published.
"I'm not pushing the government to pass new laws.
It's about enforcing the laws already in place."
Sponsored spouses win immediate permanent
residency status in Canada, unlike other
countries, which have a three-year waiting period.
Federal immigration laws also state a foreign
person is not considered a spouse if the marriage is
not genuine or it was used to gain entry to Canada.
Cindy met Eduardo over the Internet and married
in Havana in December 2004 after a long-distance
relationship and many visits to Cuba.
Although she was aware of marriage scams,
Cindy, believing her husband was true, sponsored
him to come to Canada in March of this year.
Eduardo was given permanent resident status and
he disappeared in less than three months, although
Cindy is still on the hook financially because she
is his sponsor.
At a meeting Friday with other jilted spouses and
political representatives, Cindy said one local MP
told her he hears of five similar cases a week.
"The problem is finding other members of Parliament
to put in the time and interest to work on this,"
Cindy said yesterday.
"The government needs to see the
numbers (of victims affected)."
A website has been created to press the government
on this issue.
It's at stopmarriagefraud.ca

Surprisingly it is not only women having this
problem. A former workmate of mine had this
happen to him. He was devastated.