Over 50,000 international students who may be non-compliant with the terms of their stay permits either filed an asylum claim or their current whereabouts are unknown, according to Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab.
Diab appeared before the House of Commons immigration committee on May 4 to testify on the findings of the auditor general’s report on the international student program.
In her audit released in March, Auditor General Karen Hogan had found “critical weaknesses” in how Immigration Canada dealt with non-compliance in the program.
The audit found that between 2023 and 2024, the immigration department identified over 153,000 possible permit violations among foreign students, but investigated just 4,057 of these cases.
Diab told MPs on the committee her department will investigate all cases flagged in the report by the end of 2026.
She said that out of the 153,000 cases, 64 percent are legitimately in Canada. In 22 percent of the cases, or 33,660, the immigration department has to determine whether the visa recipients remain in Canada or have left.
“We intend to investigate every last case of potential fraud to determine whether people have stayed after the expiry of their visas, so we will investigate more aggressively,” Ted Gallivan, Diab’s deputy minister, told the committee during the hearing.
Another 14 percent of the 153,000 cases, or 21,420 individuals, have filed asylum claims, according to Diab.
In recent years, as the Liberal government reduced the number of international students allowed into Canada, asylum claims filed by foreign students hit a record high.
Conservative MPs on the committee asked Diab whether any individuals linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) or other listed terrorist organizations are among the asylum claimants.
Diab said to her understanding there have been none.
“These people, these students, or former students, were all screened prior to being admitted as students,” she said.
Diab was questioned by MPs last week after her department issued a visa to Iranian Football Federation president Mehdi Taj, who is a former IRGC official. Taj flew into Canada but was denied entry.
The immigration minister told the public safety committee on April 30 that she is accountable for the incident, but said she wasn’t part of the decision-making process. Meanwhile, deputy minister Gallivan said this “shouldn’t happen again” and that it’s his responsibility to make sure of it.
Fraud Cases
Aside from the cases of potentially non-compliant students, Diab fielded questions from MPs on cases of fraud documented in the auditor general report.
The report notes that Immigration Canada found 800 study permits were issued between 2018 and 2023 to individuals providing fraudulent documents or false information, yet no action was taken to address it. As the audit was being completed, 92 percent of the individuals tied to these fraud cases were in the process of obtaining other immigration permits, including permanent residence.
Diab said her department established a process to flag and deport people who misrepresent information on an application. She told MPs she doesn’t have information on how many of the 800 are still in Canada.
Gallivan said these cases will be investigated to determine whether the immigration statuses will be cancelled.
“And for those whose status will be cancelled, they will be removed from the country,” he said. “We will learn from those scenarios to better adjust our issuing of permits so we can better target individuals.”
Canada had an estimated 431,537 individuals in the country on a student visa in the first quarter of 2026, according to Statistics Canada, and another 223,265 on study and work visas.
The number of foreign students in Canada peaked in early 2024, with 685,835 visa holders. Former Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced a national cap of 485,000 international students months later in April 2024. The target was reached in late 2025 with Statistics Canada estimating the foreign student population at 477,418.
Tory MP Costas Menegakis criticized the government for allowing a large number of people into Canada temporarily without the ability to track whether they leave after their permit expires.
“You let in record numbers of people, millions and millions of people over the past 11 years, with no control, no record, no way of having an entry or an exit system,” he said. Diab replied she agrees that Canada should have a system to track exits.
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