Kaur - Immigration Issues: Common Surname

Immigration Issues: Common Surname

A section of around a million adherents of Sikhism that live abroad in western countries only keep Singh or Kaur as their last name. This has caused legal problems in immigration procedures, especially in Canada with the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi, India for a decade stating in letters to its Sikh applicants that "the names Kaur and Singh do not qualify for the purpose of immigration to Canada." People with these common Sikh surnames had to change their last names before coming to Canada. This had been causing emotional, legal and financial hardship for Sikh applicants in India who were complying by undergoing costly and lengthy name change procedures out of fear that their application to immigrate to Canada would be rejected outright otherwise. However as soon as the media got involved and after a storm of complaints from Sikhs, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Ottawa reversed New Delhi office's 10-year decree with Canadian Federal immigration officials further clarifying that "asking applicants to provide a surname in addition to Singh or Kaur has been an administrative practice used by our visa office in New Delhi as a way to improve client service and reduce incidents of mistaken identity. This was not a mandatory requirement. There is no policy or practice whereby people with these surnames are asked to change their names, the letters that were sent out to Sikh clients in Delhi were poorly worded."