Article content

Fatima Ahmed felt “genuinely threatened” when a man called her family’s Mississauga home Tuesday afternoon and claimed they could all be deported if they didn’t fill out his forms from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Phone scam targets new Canadians for personal information, cash in wake of 'two-tier citizenship' law Back to video

He identified himself as Richard Brown and first asked for her mother, who was at work at an electronics company. When he tried to hang up, Ahmed pressed him for more information.

“He said, well I’m from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and we’re calling about your parents registering because they’re not born citizens,” Ahmed said Thursday. In retrospect, she said that should have been her first “red flag” since she was also born in Pakistan. But the 28-year-old didn’t just hang up, she wanted to know more. Her family members have been in Canada since 2000 and became citizens in 2003. She went to high school here, then university.

“You do understand how ridiculous that is? Been in this country for 15 years and now you’re asking us to re-register?” she recalls saying. “At that point he started saying, ‘Well I’m calling form CIC, this is the law, (sounding) very authoritarian”