Plagiarism and Fake Degrees in Immigration

In November 2020, the then-Canadian Immigration Minister, Marco Mendicino, announced a measure to expedite residence applications for educated residents seeking to flee Hong Kong.

The move was a direct response to a new Chinese national security law that significantly tightened restrictions on protests in the region. 

Five years later, an article by Jason Proctor at the CBC indicates that, although well-intended, the measure was widely abused.

The first warnings came in January 2022. An article in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) states that emigration firms were offering “no show degrees” and ghostwriting services to help “students” obtain dubious degrees.  All of this cost HK$250,000 ($32,000 USD / $44,000 CAD).

Fast forward to today, and the CBC has uncovered at least seven Federal Court decisions involving applicants who were rejected for misrepresentation. In each case, immigration officers questioned their credentials and determined that they did not possess the knowledge they claimed to have.

The CBC also had a reporter pose as a potential client and quickly found five firms promising that they would be “guaranteed a pass” despite not completing any assignments.

The Federal Court cases specifically named two British universities, Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Chichester. Both universities stated that they do not collaborate with immigration consultancy agencies and will take “prompt action” against those who misuse their name or violate their academic integrity rules. 

The University of Chester further stated that it ended its relationship with a Hong Kong-based school following the publication of the SCMP article.

Regardless, it’s clear that there was abuse around this program. So why did it happen? And what can countries, like Canada, do about it? The answers are complicated.

History Repeats Itself

During times of political and social upheaval, people often turn to degrees as a means to either preserve or improve their social standing. 

For example, in the United States, there is a strong correlation between a recession and college attendance. Typically, as the economy worsens, enrollment in higher education tends to increase. This makes sense. If you’re struggling to make ends meet, education is a solid way to give yourself a better chance at a high-paying career.

But the upheaval doesn’t have to be economic. In December 1991, the USSR formally dissolved. Several new countries were born (or reborn), governments were being replaced, and those in positions of power sought ways to maintain. One easier path was, predictably, education. 

Getting a higher degree, such as a PhD, was a great way to ensure you would come out on top. As a result, Russia has had a significant issue with fake PhDs, and you can find similar issues in countries like Romania that underwent a similar transition. 

The reasons are pretty obvious. There’s a strong desire to obtain a degree, a need to do so quickly, and enough turmoil that any credentials obtained will be difficult to verify, at least for some time. It’s an environment ripe for abuse.

During 2019 and 2020, Hong Kong was undergoing a similar upheaval. Mass protests against the Chinese government led to a government crackdown and mass emigration. It’s estimated that over 500,000 people left the region between 2021 and 2024. 

However, it’s unclear how many people wanted to but couldn’t. 

During this upheaval, Canada offered a fast track that was gated behind education. What happened next is wholly predictable. Many wanted to use that track but lacked the requirements. To quote one of my favorite films, “For every market, a submarket grows.”

This submarket was primarily focused on selling degrees and other credentials. For thousands of dollars, they would sell you the needed credentials. Either directly or by simply doing the work for you.

That brings us back to Canada’s challenge in enforcing these rules when so many are trying to circumvent them.

The Problem of Enforcement

In the CBC article, University of Calgary professor and academic integrity expert Sara Eaton succinctly states the problem: “When a student crosses a stage and receives a parchment, we as a society believe that the parchment they receive represents the learning they’ve done in their program.”

However, as this case makes it clear, there are gaps in that process. You have diploma mills offering fake degrees, students paying others to do the work for them (contract cheating), and students who cheat in more mundane ways but graduate before they are caught.

So, how does a government verify that a student obtained the knowledge they claimed? That is a difficult challenge.

First, it’s a significant challenge internationally. Different countries have varying rules regarding accreditation and verification, making it challenging to determine whether a candidate attended a legitimate institution. 

But that doesn’t appear to be what happened here. Both of the universities mentioned are legitimate UK universities. The allegations are that some individuals obtained real degrees through fraudulent means, namely contract cheating. 

In short, the accusation is that individuals managed to bypass the universities’ academic integrity protection and obtain legitimate degrees through illegitimate means. That is an even more difficult problem. 

As many of the cases in the CBC article noted, immigration officers often lack the knowledge or expertise to assess a candidate’s educational accomplishments.  Even if they possess the necessary skills, they may lack the necessary jurisdiction.

The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) removed an educational requirement for those in Hong Kong seeking permanent residency. However, the IRCC stated that fraud had no bearing on that decision.

Still, that leaves us with no easy answers.

No Easy Answers

One solution that is often mentioned is having experts in the field vet or otherwise approve the educational backgrounds and knowledge of candidates. 

In many ways, that makes sense. It’s somewhat similar to peer review, a process academics are used to when publishing papers. It also mirrors the Swiss cheese approach to addressing AI usage; it’s an additional layer meant to catch those not caught by the first line of defense (the universities).

However, these decisions are far more important than whether a paper is accepted for a journal or a student must redo an assignment. For some, these are literally matters of life and death.

How do we choose who oversees this process? How do we ensure they are qualified? How do we guard against their biases? The list of issues goes on.

To repeat, there are no simple answers. 

However, one thing that is important is for countries to be aware of this issue and begin thinking about how they are going to address it. This has been a challenge for as long as there has been education-based immigration. There’s no reason to be blindsided by it.

While it would be great to be able to just blindly trust degrees, this story shows why that isn’t a good option. I agree that, in an ideal world, the parchment should represent the knowledge gained. But that’s not the world that we live in right now.  

Bottom Line

I understand that, globally, immigration is a divisive topic right now. I don’t claim any expertise in that topic and, for that reason, have tried to focus on the integrity issues.

However, three things are still true:

1. There will always be people seeking to move from one country to another.
2. Countries will not allow absolutely everyone and will have to choose which groups to exclude.
3. Education will always be one of the factors that bolsters a candidate’s chance of acceptance.

As long as those three things are true, there will always be some who try to exploit the education system to bolster their chances. Whether it’s through diploma mills, contract cheating or something else.

Countries, when setting immigration policy, need to be aware of this. They need to craft policies that allow them to address fraud and improve their systems for detecting it.

If education is to be a factor in immigration, then every effort should be made to ensure that the playing field is level. It’s that simple.