This interview has been published by Anshi Mudgal and The SuperLawyer Team
So let me start with the most important question as to what motivated you to specialize in immigration consulting, particularly in the areas like humanitarian and compassionate medical inadmissibility and other cases. Let us also know more about how Settle Immigration Services Inc. became reality.
Well, interestingly enough, this is my second career. I was actually pursuing CA back then, this is 2009. My father, he’s a chartered accountant in India and in Canada. So, like in India, the son usually follows his father’s footsteps. So, yeah, it was quite interesting. And at that point in time, immigration was stemming. It was booming, you know. This profession matters. And, so I thought okay, I’ll probably do this on the side. But when I attended my first course, I realized this is not something you can do it on the side, this is huge, vast, there’s so many categories, so many sectors, immigration, business immigration, enforcement, economic class, family sponsorships.
So, at that point in time, I decided, you know what, I need to choose one path, I cannot just keep my legs on both boats. And I chose immigration consulting. Back then it was ICCRC, the body we used to govern it, regulate it. So I completed my program, gave the licensing exams, and then 2012 is when I started my practice.
I used to do all the cases initially, all type of cases, economic class, you name it, family sponsorship, everything just to get hands on knowledge and experience. But over the time, I got more and more experienced in certain categories and that’s where I wanted to excel, which is what led me to humanitarian, PFLs, Procedural Fairness Letter. So just for that, who don’t know what PFL is, PFL is usually when we have submitted our application to IRCC, and if the officer has any concerns about the application, they send a letter to the applicant, giving them a chance to respond to their concerns. We could say, majority of times, they have already made up their mind, the officers, but it’s just that for the sake of following the protocol of law, they just want to give it a chance.
And that is what we receive and respond to their concerns. It is our track record that we have turned those PFLs into successful applications, over 90 percent so far in 12 years. What’s important is to assess first what has happened and majority PFLs that we receive are the DIY applications, and this is where I’ll talk about more later on that it is imperative that one should retain legal expert for such matters.
What Settle Immigration does is, we are an immigration firm, which offers services, any immigration service, mainly we deal with all sorts of applications. However, more of my time going into refusal cases, HNC submission letters, and then family sponsorships, those sort of cases.
So from almost becoming a CA like father, you became an immigration expert, which is another field. So how was your journey from all this, starting from scratch again and then becoming chair of the board at the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants? And if you could share what kind of responsibilities do you take care of over there? What all is in play at that place? Being the chair of the board.
It was a very interesting journey, matter of fact. Initially, with any business, first, you’re trying to get the hands on, especially when you don’t have business experience and you don’t want to learn from your father.
So that was a hard way I learned my business. And later I realized, I should have listened to him first. So mainly, it was quite a struggle in the beginning. A lot of time people did advise me to do unethical practices. You know, selling LMIs and all sort of stuff that happens in the immigration industry.
Not just limited to consultants, but also lawyers are involved, for information. However, I chose not to go that path. I said, my work will talk on my behalf. So It took me a few years. And then slowly I worked my way up. I’m very blessed to say this, that all our clientele is purely referral based purely.
It’s all word of mouth. Actually, I was on board on finance audit committee of ICRC, and then it turned into college in 2019, now it’s a college. But back then I served over there. Then in 2018, I joined CAPIC, I joined just as a team member and a committee, slowly worked my way up and in 2021 became the board member.
And 2024 last year, chair of the board. So I’m very proud of my achievement. But this happened with the help of my parents, they initially helped me in my business, supported me financially and also all sort of resources that they could give.
So, thanks to them and thanks, Lord. In terms of chair of the board, my role, mainly it involves strategic leadership, ensuring CAPIC remains a strong voice for immigration consultants across Canada. I work closely with the board to set long term goals, also advocate for policies that uphold the integrity of the profession.
And I also get involved in stakeholder meetings with CICC or IRCC, CBSA, all these government bodies. Matter of fact, I just had one meeting last month, December 18, in Ottawa. I was co-chairing that meeting with the assistant director of ISTC Tandilin.
So the impact of this role is quite substantial. We help shape the future of the profession by advocating for necessary reforms promoting continuing education which we call CPD. And also ensuring that the members have access to resources that they need.
Keeping all this in mind, when we talk about skilled professionals in a different variety of fields where they are practicing, how do you pave the way for them? How do you guide them to immigrate from one country, let’s say India to Canada, obviously. How is that journey? Because obviously one person has already studied in one space and then they have to compete in Canada.
What guidance or some key points can you share so that our learners can understand that if they have garnered one skill, what more they have to do to move forward and think about if they are planning any immigration to Canada?
Right. Well, I start with assessment, and I like to call myself probably an immigration doctor.
So I conduct the ultrasound x ray. I find out first things first, are they eligible? If they’re eligible, for which pathway, for which stream are they eligible? Is it express entry? Is it PNPs? And sometimes it depends on the client. Sometimes they want to immigrate right away. Some say, we do have time or we can stay in India and we can work on our IELTS or CELPIP or PDE or we can work on our French, you know, there are various pathways. So after assessing, some do fit in the category of express entry. And often people do confuse that express entry is PR. It’s not a PR pathway, it does have categories, and that’s where you need to be eligible first thing first.
So, it has CEC, Canadian Experience Class category, and then it has Federal Skill Worker category, and then there’s some PNPs, Provincial Nominee Programs. So it is important first to make sure or determine their eligibility under which category they’re eligible. Majority of times people do qualify under Federal Skilled Worker category.
And then, often people look at the score in Express Entry, and that’s how it’s based on score basis and draw basis and all that. But what they fail to know is that for Federal Skilled Worker, you need to meet certain score, even a separate score within Federal Skilled Worker, which is 67 out of 100. So people say to me, oh, I need 7778, not really, 7778 is just one of those requirements of language.
Language is one of the requirements of the Federal Skilled Worker class category. But there’s adaptability, there’s age, education, experience, skilled experience. And, often people get confused with title and job duties. So there’s a section of the law in immigration protection regulation which states that it is 7.1 that you shall be performing majority duties as per the NOC code, NOC code. So there’s a NOC code. So you could be holding a title of, let’s say, a receptionist, but you could be doing duties of admin assistant. Now, receptionist is a semi skilled job and admin assistant is a skilled job. So basically, people could say, oh, I’m not eligible.
Because I have a semi skilled title, so title doesn’t matter, duties are what matters. What we need to make sure is that we have reviewed the duties of NOC code. Then I usually advise the applicants that once you have confirmed that you meet those duties, then you should also sit down with the employer.
It doesn’t matter if you’re outside Canada or inside Canada and go through those duties with them because those are the duties that would go on your experience letter. And, again, I like to brag about myself, that the application that we have done in our office from scratch, that we have submitted in the last 12 years, we never received any PSO or peer applications, including Express Entry.
A majority, when you do the Express Entry, you have to submit an experience letter. And that is where we spend most of our time to make sure, first thing first, the applicant, do they perform those duties? Number one, majority of them, and I say majority, I mean to say 60 percent or more, and then if they do, then is the employer comfortable?
Or are they willing to put that on the experience letter? And that’s a challenge with some of the large organizations I’m not going to take names, but some of the very large organizations, they have set templates. And they do not like to go outside the template. And this is where the struggle is.
I sometimes have to get into some sort of a debate with them that the duties on the letter are not in accordance with the NOC code. And that’s where your employee can get a refusal. And we deal with all those kinds of refusals as well. And if you happen to be any member of your organization who is watching this, and if you happen to be in that situation. You don’t have to worry about it.
You could just simply first try to convince your employer that, hey, I performed these duties. It’s not that I’m making it up. So could you please add them to the letter? Number one. Number two. If you’re not successful in that, then you could just simply get, we call it alternate source of document.
You could just simply get a reference letter from your supervisor or your manager and that would help. So at oftentimes, when I look at the experience letters from India, the applicant or the client say that, oh, I do have experience letter. And when I look at them, majority of times, it just shows the start date, end date, salary, if is there, but it doesn’t talk about duties.
So make sure if you are currently planning to switch your organization before you leave, make sure you have a letter that states your duties as well. And most importantly, those duties should be in alignment with the NOC code duties, do not copy paste, because those are very general duties. They are generic.
And the idea was initially, those NOC code duties are for ESD purposes for employers, Canadian employers to help them when they are hiring from either foreign national or Canadian resident. But IRCC take that module or that concept for their applications. So, this you have to apply that to your own duties.
And this is where, again, I like to reiterate, hiring a professional and expert is very important to guide you.
Amazing! Thank you so much for highlighting all those points. And obviously plagiarism doesn’t help anywhere. So don’t copy paste. Exactly. Keeping all that in mind, if you could shed some light on the difference between like you were talking about express entry and other immigration pathways that you just explained, how are they different and what kind of challenges an individual may face not only by putting in their real duties and whatever things have to be on document, what other challenges I’m pretty sure must be there. How can they address that?
Sure. So express entry, it’s like a system, like I said, it just gives you a score and allows you to register your profile. But number one, as I said, you make sure that you are eligible to register your profile. So it’s a pool based system, which attracts young people because after a certain age, they start to reduce or subtract your points after 29. So, let’s say you have skilled experience. It has to be skilled. And if you have skilled experience, either overseas or inside Canada. And you have language requirements and depending on which category, let’s say if it is Canadian Experience Class category, you need to have one year of skilled experience and then the required IELTS or CELPIP or language bands, and then you can register your profile.
You may have a score of, let’s say, 350 out of 1200. Or 450 out of 1200, but I strongly encourage applicants to still register. Back in 2021, I believe it was 2021, February 2021, we had a draw of 75. That was the lowest ever score draw in Canadian history of this express entry. Express entry got launched in January 2015.
Since then, it was the lowest one. There were 27,000 applications that IRCC took at that time, approximately 27,000. So after that, I always recommend anyone to, if you’re eligible, register. If you believe that your score is low, your IELTS bands are not up to the mark that you were expecting, don’t worry about it, simply register.
And, once you get your better score, either IELTS or even you’re working on your French, just add on to that, update your profile. So your profile is valid for one year. And, so the Canadian government, they do draws. It used to be very frequent before, but now they’re happening once a month, approximately.
So let’s say they do a draw of 500, just like in India there’s a game, Tambola. So if they do a score of let’s say 500, and your score is 510 or 505 or 500, you would get an invitation to submit your PR application. Then you have two months. And during COVID time they get three months, but now it’s back to two months.
You have to arrange all the documents. That includes their experience letter, proof of employment, you know, their pay stubs, ITR, and talking about that, oftentimes people, they say that they don’t have pay stubs, they receive their salary in cash. But they have received their salary in cash, and that’s a very, very important point.
It’s completely fine if you receive salary in cash. See, what the immigration officer is looking for genuineness of employment. So this is all they want to make sure is that you have performed those duties and it was paid. It cannot be volunteer position.
If you have received in cash, you could simply get a letter from your employer stating that you received your salary in cash. That would suffice. and if you were depositing that cash consistently every month, or semi monthly basis, however the structure was, provide a bank statement. Now, that could, someone could ask, oh, I would keep some money for myself and then deposit the remainder, which is fine.
At least there is a consistency that we see on a monthly basis. Number one. So that’s one approach. If you were not depositing cash, which is common as well, people just simply spend if they’re receiving salary in cash. Then you, must be filing tax return. Now which leads to another dilemma that there’s a threshold in India to file a tax return that if you’re in certain bracket, you don’t need to, for women, I believe it’s higher.
So in that case, if your salary was less than the threshold, let’s say if you were getting 10,000 – 15,000 per month, Which is let’s say, 120, 000 annually. So you can tell why I did not pursue a CA, I’m not that good in math. So, yeah, you could just simply get an affidavit, you can write an affidavit. And in addition to the reference letter from the employer, a lot of times people do ask me that can we get an affidavit from the employer?
Certainly you can, but it depends, how far the employer wants to help you or they can go. So you don’t need to push it too much. As long as you’ve performed the duties. Gather as much evidence as you can. If you’re lacking these documents, let’s say bank statements and tax returns, then maybe you could also seek or get a letter from your co worker as well.
That could work. So, these are all the last resorts, the secondary source of document I’m, recommending. Primary source of documents are mainly. The employment letter, pay stubs, tax returns, those are the ones. Now, talking about Federal Skilled Worker Class, in that, like I said, you need to meet 67 points irst things first.
And, then, if you meet that, you can register a profile. Same, process for that as well, if you get selected. Now, the most undermined thing that people underestimate is the power of French test. So, people do often say, oh, Mr.Babbar I only have a score of, let’s say, 450 or 500.
And the draws that are happening right now, they are high. And that will, by the way, remain high for next year or two until our economy stabilizes. So, I do often recommend, it doesn’t matter what your score is, you should go for French test, TEF or TCF. And in the French test, if you score an average of 70 percent in each module, then your score will increase by 62.62 62 That’s huge. Other than that, there are also French draws that happen. Category based draws that got introduced recently by IRCC. You could even get selected if you have a one year skilled experience in your profile plus the desired French score. So, one should always look into French test.
That’s very important. Now, that would increase your score. And then going beyond Express Entry, there are some provincial nominee programs. Each province, there are 10 provinces, 3 territories in Canada, each province have their own provincial nominee program for PR applicants, and majority are employer driven, which means that you need to have a job offer.
A majority are also draw basis. Some would allow you to register a profile if you don’t have their employer job offer, but there are very few. So if an applicant is outside Canada, then it’s quite tough of that approach for PNPs.
It usually works for the ones who are Inside Canada. I’m not saying that is how it works, but majority times. Unless, let’s say, you have some sort of skilled experience, which Ontario, for example, it’s looking for, so you could be selected under human capital stream while you have an active express entry profile. So they would pick you. You cannot apply. So it’s a random selection, depending on which NOC order, what positions are they sending the invitations out to. And then you get selected. We then submit an application of nomination to that province. Once that gets approved, then you would get 600 points in express entry, additional.
Now if you’re inside Canada, then of course there are so many options for you, you know, employer based. For example, Ontario PNP, Provincial Nominee Program, has a path where if you graduated recently. In the last two years, they can give you a job offer and you can register a profile and you don’t necessarily have to have experience. I’m talking about international student stream.
There’s a category called international student stream. And you register your profile, something like express entry, you get invitation, you apply for nomination, nomination gets approved, then you apply for PR. It’s different than express entry. It’s not express entry. Or there’s skilled trades stream for Ontario, that if you have trades experience that for the last one year, let’s say, for example, plumber, electrician, drywall installer, so then you could get an invitation for 600 points in Express Entry.
So, these are certain options. Other than that, sometimes I recommend if you want to come to Canada, you can come on master’s program, that would also give you 30 points in express entry once you graduate. And then there are certain PNPs that would, allow you to apply for PR right after master’s.
Again, giving you example, Ontario PNP, if you graduated from master’s, you can create a profile. If you get an invitation, again, draw basis. If you get an invitation, you can apply for PR. So people who ask me, how can I get there earlier, because it might take some time for me to work on my IELTS or work on my French or even if they don’t have any experience, skilled experience.
So I recommend you come to Canada for a master’s program. If you have your undergrad and you can do your program and concurrently, you can also gain your Canadian experience after masters because you then get postgraduate work from it for three years, but enough time for you to gain skilled experience inside Canada, which gets you more points and express entry more than overseas experience or foreign experience.
And I tell people the ones who have foreign experience. Look, you could either spend 30-40,000 dollars and study for two years and go through that long process, because then you would study for a year and a half or two years depends on how soon you complete your program or you could just do your French test in India. You go to either Alliance Française or whichever institutes are over there and perform good in your, IELTS test, IELTS or whichever you want to give, get to 550 or the range that’s happening right now, and you don’t have to incur that huge amount of cost.
And you enter Canada as a PR, because if you have a desire to do master’s or post grad education in Canada, you could still do so, but as a domestic student, you would be charged to pay less as opposed to international. So these are the pathways. Now, last point, I just want to cover all the questions that you raised.
What issues are that people do come across? Majority of times, I believe it is the eligibility, number one, that they fail to understand are they eligible. And a lot of times, to give you a very recent example last month, I was dealing with an application where the applicant thought that the NOC code was, let’s say, for the sake of this conversation 13110, but it was actually different.
They were qualifying for a different NOC code. So if you select a NOC code which is not eligible, your application can get refused. So it’s very important to select the right NOC code. So again, this comes to mainly eligibility assessment. And then the second issue that I do see in DIY applications is documentation error.
Filling out information incorrectly, sharing one recent experience, we just retained a case in which, it was DIY the officer, they kept asking for information, to send them appropriate form. The form, it was parent, grandparents application PGP.
And, the client inadvertently, they filled out the application as a sponsor, where they were looking at the applicant. So it was for their parents, and the sponsor was filling out that form. So that led to eventually the refusal of the application. And on a minor end, if you fail to disclose your refusal, your previous refusal, even to other countries, not just Canada, it is important they ask you, you need to disclose your refusals for Canada or any other country.
That it’s very important that you do disclose otherwise it would lead to misrepresentation section 40, 5 year ban to Canada. If you’re in Canada, if you do so, you would be issued a removal order and then deportation and all that. So it is important that you disclose. If you’re not sure. Well, this is why I always recommend again, coming back to adding a legal expert for such matters.
As it may look like a very simple, straightforward application, but any error could cause a huge impact. So, these are the main things that I do notice. Common issues.
Thank you for explaining it in so much depth and importance of French because, yes, many people do not even know that this can be very helpful and many of us do study French, mandatory in different variety of courses that we do, not only in certain universities but for other courses like MBAs where you have to interact with international community.
You get to learn a different language. So if French is so important, no one has told, at least if they have told it has not reached the masses. Thank you for bringing that up.
And one point, often people say, Oh, it seems to be an alien language.
It will take so much time. That’s okay, and meanwhile you can keep your profile registered, as I said, and while you’re working on French, once you get that result, let’s say if it takes six months, in India it is very convenient.. I mean there are some, there are so many options. There’s so many institutes that does do these courses. You can do crash course.
I did a crash course back. It was not needed for immigration purposes, but I wanted to get trained in another language. So back in 2003 or 2004, I did a crash course for French and about, I believe it was about 8 months or 10 months, I was able to write essays, letters in French.
So if you give yourself, and this is where the conversation comes back, like, you know, do you want to spend 40 grands, and this is the tuition fee, by the way, I’m not talking about the living expenses, so 40 grands and tuition. Plus additional 20 K per year for a living expense or 10, 15 K, whatever it depends on where you live.
Or would you rather spend maybe 5 grand? I don’t know what the cost is in India, but just trying some number out there. And you also are getting continued gaining your skill experience while wherever you’re working and do French and IELTS and I also tell people, look, you can just simply close yourself in a room, give yourself 3 months, for the preparation, right? So, the choice is yours.
You know what the thing is, that 50 grand, which would accumulate to, let’s say, by the time you graduate, about 70K including the living expenses and other expenditure. That’s like half of the down payment of your house in Canada.
So again, if I were in position of the applicants who are outside Canada, I would’ve rather spent six months in India or whichever country they’re in and work on my IELTS, work on my French the best I can. And, I would just simply then, go register my profile instead of coming to Canada first.
What a beautiful way of explaining this, that if you can save it for your own house, nothing like it. Once you immigrate, you at least have something for yourself over there. All of these things accumulate to so many other aspects of immigration itself, because obviously you’re leaving your own country, your own comfort zone.
I would like to ask a little question related to the kind of global impacts or global events that take place all throughout the world. They also impact the immigration process. Many times it’s like if one event is happening in one corner of the world, immigration just takes a landslide, I would say, for another country. Many times it has happened for different, different reasons. So how have you seen that that has happened in 2024 or post COVID? And what kind of future events are you looking forward to in relation to immigration itself?
COVID and then the wars that we are seeing, either Ukraine or other countries, Israel or Palestine, they have increased the applications, there’s a lot of burden, especially for under refugee type of categories.
And that has also backlogged the system. So even though the Canadian immigration, they’re focusing on now they’re trying AI for some decisions, though they do say that at the end, it would be looked at by the officer for refusals, refusal application, but, that is not my experience.
I do see the applications are not looked by the officer. The refusals that were given by AI or by the digital sort of system that they have, softwares. And then we either, let’s say we go for judicial review, which is appeal in federal court, or we go for reconsideration. Then the federal court gets backlogged as well, you know. So with all these changes and globally, all these tensions and all that, they have backlogged Canadian immigration, which is why the processing time has been impacted. And that was another thing that we discussed in Ottawa last month with IRCC. How do they assess or how did they figure out the processing time that they put on their website?
Because you can check the processing time. So they mentioned that they look at the past and then they have a forward core approach and the past approach, based on that they give us a timeline. It is now becoming more and more closer to accurate, I would say. But the way things are going, massive immigration that Canada has taken on, and as you can see, it’s in news all the time, it has impacted Canadian economy negatively.
So, It appears that now the current government or even the future government, because elections will be called anytime now. So even the current government and future government, they’re both working on restricting immigration. So, the targets have already been lowered, like they had said before. The next three years or two years, things will be tough.
And this is where I strongly recommend to increase your score, do the IELTS, don’t just stick to 7778. People do have this wrong assumption. This was for a federal school worker class category to make itself eligible. But go beyond 7778. 7.5. 7.5 in speaking, writing and reading, and listening. That will increase the score more.
French will increase the score more. And you know what, if your score is way too low, then you can, I will suggest that you can probably come to Canada on a study basis. That will increase the score and then gaining Canadian experience will increase the score as well.
That’s a very, very honest reply, that be truthful and plan your immigration or migration both in a diligent fashion and with obviously honesty. Because immigration officers are sitting there to check whether you are being honest with your papers, with your documents, with your French. Or not, but thank you so much, Prateek, for giving us this much time and such in-depth knowledge about all this process, because many times when learners want to move and do the immigration, these are the obstacles that they face.
So it’ll be much easier for them to understand that they need someone who is an expert in immigration. They should be reached out. And it has been a beautiful, beautiful , conversation today and thanks again for giving us this much time and enlightening us with so much in depth knowledge. I hope you enjoyed the conversation with us as well.
Before I leave, I just want to mention a very important factor, though I have stressed this before, but misrepresentation is taken very seriously, very seriously. I know, some countries are relaxed on their immigration policies, but Canada is not one of them.
So people sometimes think that, Oh, I’m not generalizing. I’m just saying sometimes I come across some clients. There’s certain people who believe that. Okay, we can show something on our experience letter, but they’re not performing those duties. So, for example, they might be doing a semi skilled job, but they put on experience of a skilled job.
Which is misrepresentation, document fraud. Do not do that, do not do that, you are doing a disservice to yourself, and you’re looking for a potential deportation if you’re already in Canada, or a 5 year ban if you’re outside Canada. And often I say this is not about just your life, it’s also about other lives, your family, your immediate family, your spouse if you’re married.
And then your parents, if you’re later on thinking to sponsor them, I imagine you are, you know, screwing up the entire thing. And sometimes, the employer is innocent and they want to help the employee. So they say, no problem, whatever you need, we’ll put on the experience letter. No, no, no, don’t do that either.
You need to perform those duties. You should be performing those duties. It’s very important. If you are not performing those duties, then tell the employer to give you those duties, those tasks so that you can perform them, gain experience and then put the application. So I take that very seriously and I recommend that do not intentionally or unintentionally misrepresent.
It’s very important. Thank you.
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