A man accused of trying to steal a car from a Vancouver dealership while in Canada on an expired student visa will be allowed to stay in the country, a case document says.
“He was kicked out of the Ontario college, living on the streets, jobless, addicted to weed, and afraid to return to India because of his sexual identity,” the document says, citing his interviews with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) in 2024 and his hearing with the board’s Immigration Division.
He met a man who offered him a construction job in Vancouver and arranged the flight, according to the document. In Vancouver, a contact gave him better clothes and asked him to buy a 2019 BMW 330 priced at $37,252 from a dealership using a fake ID and credit card, as a “favour.”
The dealership staff detected the fake ID and called the police. The contact disappeared, and the man was arrested, the document says.
The Crown prosecutor did not pursue criminal charges, and the man was instead referred to CBSA. The agency prepared a report alleging he was inadmissible to Canada for participating in organized crime. However, the board’s Immigration Division rejected the allegation, which was then appealed by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
In her ruling on the appeal, tribunal member Maryanne Kingma wrote that the man was “coerced into domestic criminal actions that did not even lead to a criminal charge.”
She found that his trip to Vancouver was meant to solve his immediate survival problems, not to join in “organized national or international auto theft crimes,” and that “the evidence favours the Respondent’s position that he was a dupe.”
Kingma said there were reasonable grounds to believe the man had committed attempted auto theft, identity fraud, and forgery, but committing a domestic crime is “not the same as having knowledge and involvement in a criminal organization.”
The case was heard by video conference on Jan. 6, 2026, and the ruling was made on Jan. 29.
The ruling only dealt with the inadmissibility or removal of the man from Canada, and does not grant him immigration status. To get permanent residence, he would need to apply through a separate pathway, such as a humanitarian and compassionate application, a refugee claim, or another immigration stream.
