An Edmonton woman is set to be removed from Canada next month because her student visa application contained a fraudulent admissions letter — even though Canadian authorities believe she didn’t know it was fake.

Karamjeet Kaur and her lawyer hope an application for permanent residency based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds will be processed before her scheduled removal date of May 29th.

“She’s broken right now,” her lawyer Manraj Sidhu said Thursday.

“She is going to be sent back to the same society where will she will be just forced to confine herself to the vicinity of her house. That’s what she did for 18 or 20 years of her life because she was ridiculed, harassed, mocked whenever she stepped out of the house because of her disability.” 

Kaur grew up in a small community in Punjab where a childhood accident resulted in a physical disability that affected the right side of her body.

In Canada, her world opened up. 

She completed a diploma in business administration management and earned a promotion to supervisor at the hardware store where she worked throughout the pandemic. Sidhu said Kaur also experienced something she never thought possible in India — a romantic relationship.

“She was able to live like a normal human being when she was in Canada.” said Sidhu. “Now she is required to go back for no fault of her own.”

Escaping a life of discrimination was primarily why Kaur made her way to Canada in the first place.

Her family hired an immigration agent who included the fake admission letter in her visa application. It was only detected by authorities years later.

Kaur’s family filed a report with police in Punjab. The agent was charged but is now on the lam, while continuing to make threats to Kaur and her family, Sidhu said.

In an email, the Canadian Border Services Agency said it is legally obligated to remove foreign nationals inadmissible to Canada. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not respond by deadline. 

Sidhu urged authorities to hold off until immigration can process their latest application. Filed about four months ago, it’s an avenue only available in exceptional circumstances, once other ways have been exhausted. 

Sidhu called for a more pragmatic approach to removal in cases where there is no criminality, sufficient humanitarian and compassionate factors, and the person concerned is a contributing member of society who is in the immigration queue.

“It’s a waste of resources,” Sidhu said. “One hand is not talking to the other hand,”