The federal government issued a new passport to an admitted human smuggler after he was ordered to surrender the travel document as part of court-imposed release conditions, CBC News has learned.
The new passport was discovered in June 2023 by RCMP investigators executing a search warrant at the Montreal home of Thesingarasan Rasiah during a probe targeting an international human smuggling network that Rasiah allegedly headed, according to court records obtained by CBC News.
At the time, Rasiah was living at home with an electronic ankle bracelet on strict conditions while awaiting sentencing on a February 2023 guilty plea to one count of breaching the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for his role in the smuggling of a Sri Lankan national from the U.S. into Canada in 2021.
Rasiah had been forced to surrender his passport to the RCMP in 2021 as part of his release conditions related to the human smuggling attempt that was intercepted by police in Cornwall, Ont., located about 120 kilometres west of Montreal along the Canada-U.S. border.
Rasiah was also forbidden from applying for any new travel documents.
Smuggling operation linked to deaths
Rasiah was charged on April 1, 2021, after he was caught in a Cornwall motel parking lot receiving a Sri Lankan national who had just been smuggled into Canada. He was sentenced to 15 months in jail in September 2023.
He was re-arrested this past May by the RCMP on charges he led an international human smuggling organization that moved hundreds of people north and south across the Canada-U.S. border. He remains in custody.
Investigators with the Cornwall Regional Task Force — which includes officers from the RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) — also linked Rasiah’s organization to the deaths of nine people on the St. Lawrence River in late March 2023. Two families — one from India, the other from Romania — drowned with a boatman in rough river waters trying to get into the U.S.
The new passport seized by RCMP during the search of Rasiah’s home in 2023 was issued by Service Canada on April 11, 2023, less than two weeks after eight bodies were pulled from the river, according to a copy of the document filed with the Ontario Court of Justice.
Matthew Eamer, a former OPP detective sergeant with the Cornwall Regional Task Force, said Rasiah continued to organize smuggling runs across the Canada-U.S. border while he was on conditions and awaiting sentencing for the 2021 human smuggling guilty plea.
“He was still operating even though he was on release for the same charges,” said Eamer, who retired in May and investigated Rasiah’s activities over three years.
MP Tom Kmiec, Conservative critic on the immigration, refugee and citizenship file, told CBC News he wants the House of Commons’s citizenship and immigration committee to hold an emergency meeting to examine Rasiah’s case.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller and federal passport officials should appear before the committee to explain what happened, he said.
“You think the integrity of our passport system is one of the most critical parts of ensuring that … known criminals aren’t able to get brand new passports after we take away their old ones. It’s just a complete failure,” said Kmiec.
“How bad is our national security infrastructure when we can’t catch the most basic things in our system?”
Passport system called ‘weak link’
The current Canadian passport system is the “weak link in the security chain,” said Kelly Sundberg, associate professor of criminology at Mount Royal University in Calgary.
Sundberg says the screening process for passports operates in a silo separate from any databases the courts and police may share. Currently, it’s up to individual law enforcement agencies like the RCMP to contact Passport Canada to flag an individual.
“It’s very superficial security and very much based on an honour system,” he said.
Passports should be moved under the purview of the CBSA, which is linked into law enforcement databases, said Sundberg.
“We got to start taking border security seriously.”
Currently, the passport program is the responsibility of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. However, Employment and Social Development Canada, through Service Canada, delivers the program.
CBC News has also learned that Rasiah was sentenced to 52 days in jail after he was convicted in 2008 for possessing two Canadian passports that weren’t in his name when he landed at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, according to CBSA.
Donald Trump’s promise to crack down on illegal immigration in the U.S. is raising concerns about an influx of migrants crossing into Canada. Officials say the country simply can’t house them, while advocates fear migrants will risk their lives in freezing conditions.
In 2017, CBSA investigators in Quebec charged Rasiah in connection with a human smuggling event at the port of entry in Dundee, Que., about 125 km southwest of Montreal. He pleaded guilty to “counselling misrepresentation” under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and received an 18 month conditional sentence.
Citing privacy laws, Immigration Canada said it couldn’t comment specifically on Rasiah’s case.
“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and Service Canada work closely with law enforcement partners for information on passport surrender orders,” the department said in an emailed statement.
“If we are made aware by law enforcement partners of an applicant forging or tampering with passports, the file will be further reviewed.”
The RCMP refused to comment, saying it was aware Immigration Canada would be responding to questions from CBC News.
Motivation is ‘pure greed’
Eamer said he first encountered Rasiah on April 1, 2021, in the parking lot of a Cornwall motel, about four kilometres north of the border. The task force had received U.S. intelligence through the CBSA about an unfolding human smuggling run.
Eamer was in the lead marked police cruiser that boxed in two vehicles at the motel. One was driven by Rasiah, the other by a woman who pulled into the parking lot to hand over a Sri Lankan national she had just smuggled across the border.
“The motivation in this is pure greed. It’s people looking to make money,” said Eamer. “There’s nothing altruistic about it whatsoever, they’re just doing this for profit.”
After Rasiah’s arrest, Eamer sat in an interrogation room across the table from the Sri Lankan national who had been smuggled into Canada.
The man wept loudly, speaking in Tamil about the wife he’d left behind in Malaysia, his fear of returning to the U.S. or his own country, and how he wanted to make a refugee claim in Canada, according to the interrogation video obtained by CBC News.
“I hope I will get my refugee status in this country,” said the man, crying, through a Tamil language interpreter translating over speaker phone.
Eamer said he wasn’t an immigration officer and couldn’t help him in that way.
“My role here is to investigate the criminality involving the people smuggling him across the border as a victim,” said Eamer, to the interpreter.
The Sri Lankan national said Rasiah had charged him $7,000 Cdn to get him into Canada. While he didn’t have that much cash at the time they made the deal, the man said Rasiah promised him a job so he could pay the money back.
“He said, ‘You can pay me back in small amounts,’ ” the Sri Lankan national told Eamer through the interpreter.
Canadian immigration authorities sent the man back to the U.S.