A rare look inside the black box of Canada immigration

With marriage of convenience being Ottawas catchphrase on the abuse of the immigration system in recent years, Canada has tightened sponsorship rules.

The Toronto Star McMaster Universitys Vic Satzewich got access to Canadas overseas visa posts to study how officials decide who deserves to come here. By: Nicholas Keung Immigration reporter, Published on Sat Feb 01 2014 It is always a mystery how immigration officials come to the conclusion if a marriage is genuine or fake !ut now a new study has shed light on the inner thinking of the decision"makers. McMaster University professor Vic Satzewich was given rare access !y Citizenship and Immigration Canada inside Canadas overseas visa posts to e#amine how visa officers used their discretionary power to decide who deserved to $oin their spouses here. Satzewich is !elieved to !e only the second Canadian researcher in %& years !eing granted such access to what he calls the immigration departments '!lack !o# ( after the late University of )oronto professor *reda +awkins did her field research at the visa posts in ,urope in -./0 to study immigrations frontline operations. 1etween 2&-& and 2&-2 Satzewich was granted site visits at -- visa offices 3 in ,urope the United States the Middle ,ast South 4merica the Cari!!ean 4frica and 4sia 3 to o!serve how individual immigration applications were processed. +e interviewed -25 frontline officers and managers on how they reached their decisions. Satzewich identified a num!er of 'flags( and 'indicators( that visa officers rely on in their assessments6 4pplicants who come from poor countries need a visa to visit Canada and are

from cities or regions of countries where fraud is common7 Couples who dont have a common language of communication have not met !efore marriage do not know details in each others personal histories and current lives and are deemed not compati!le in age physical appearance and values7 In one application that Satzewich o!served an officer in India flagged the case !ecause 'there is a seven"year difference in age !etween the couple and the sponsor is a divorcee and only five days elapsed !etween when the couple first met and the marriage.( More at thestar.com: Chinese immigrants go after restaurant chain for owed wages 1order officials to share travellers info with federal government 1urmese refugee loves Canadas respect for human rights In another at a South 4merican visa post officials approved an application !ecause 'this is positive. She does not have a history of trying to get out of Colom!ia.( +owever sponsored spouses who had previously lived in Canada always draw suspicions. 4n applicant facing deportation suddenly getting married often raises concerns said one officer from a Cari!!ean visa post. 4nd in what seems like a uni8ue investigative techni8ue Canadian officials scrutinize photographic evidence 3 who and how many people attended the ceremony the demeanor and if the guests smiled 3 to help assess credi!ility. In the Cari!!ean a small wedding of 9& attendees was defined as normal said Satzewich !ut in :un$a! the norm is 9&& 0&& guests. ;o!ody in the photos is smiling ( a visa officer told Satzewich. 'Its a Sikh temple so its a serious occasion !ut no!ody is smiling. ;o!ody seems happy. )his is a concern ( the officer added !efore referring the applicant to a further in"person interview. 4nd an e#cessive confession of love in a couples correspondence can !ackfire. )he love letters are out of this world. )hey know that we are reading them so they write them for us ( said one official deployed in a Cari!!ean visa post. <ou cant talk a!out love all the time. <ou have to talk a!out something else ( $oked another. Satzewichs analysis is !ased on 22& hours of field work inside visa offices appears in the *e!ruary edition of the Canadian =eview of Sociology >ournal pu!lished Saturday. Credi!ility is central to a Canadian visa officers decision a!out spousal admissi!ility ( Satzewich said in his article titled Canadian Visa Officers and the Social Construction of Real Spousal Relationships. Credi!ility is ?worked up or constructed !y visa officers who rely on a variety of typifications of what normal cases look like. )hese typifications serve as !ases for defining some applicants as undeserving while at the same time defining other applicants as deserving.( @ith marriage of convenience !eing Attawas catchphrase on the a!use of the immigration system in recent years Canada has tightened sponsorship rules !y making permanent residence conditional upon a couple living together for two years and !anning the sponsored spouse from sponsoring another partner within five years. Screening a relationship !efore a foreign spouse arrives in Canada is at the forefront of

the control mechanism to detect frauds said Satzewich. Visa officers deem some as 'genuine( applicants who tell the truth are in real relationships and follow the rules and the 'fake( who use marriage as a tool to ac8uire immigrant status said Satzewich who wondered if racial !iases played any role in officers decision making. )he system allows racial !iases to creep in the selection process. )hey could use their authority to put it !luntly and crudely to keep Canada white ( Satzewich noted. @hile re$ection rates are undou!tedly higher in some visa offices than others Satzewich said it should not !e interpreted that visa officers racially discriminate against applicants or treat those from some countries more harshly than others to keep them out of Canada. *or an individual visa officer a high re$ection rate means they have to work harder and process proportionately more applications in a year to find enough ?deserving cases ( said Satzewich referring to the annual government acceptance 8uotas they have to meet. Satzewich said he was taken !ack !y how few face"to"face interviews with immigration applicants are !eing conducted as the government gradually shifted to a paper" screening selection process that is !ased on o!$ective documentations such as official language test results. 1ut in the end I came away with a lot more confidence into our immigration system and a !etter appreciation of the comple#ity of what our visa officers do ( he said.