OTTAWA -- Maybe it wasn't love at first sight, but it was close.

Ten years ago, Jeff Vanderhorst spotted Yennis Escobar Pompa walking along a street in Las Tunas, Cuba, with her mother.

The vacationing welder from Amherstburg, near Windsor, didn't speak Spanish. But that didn't stop him from getting himself introduced to the pretty Cuban, then asking if she'd like to have a drink.

"We made some arrangements," he remembers, "and it went from there."

Over the next four years, he visited her regularly, phoned her frequently and met her family. Finally, Vanderhorst decided to bring Escobar to Canada. He sponsored her as his fiancee and on July 20, 2003, she flew to Toronto.

Whose idea was the arrangement? "That was me, that was me," he admits, ruefully.

Less than three weeks after Yennis Escobar Pompa arrived at Pearson International Airport, she dumped Vanderhorst. When he came home from work one day, "she was gonzo.

"I was in panic mode; I was very upset. How would you feel if you figured you're going to spend your life with somebody and they just up and leave 17 days later?"

Vanderhorst believes he was duped - that Escobar became his fiancee solely to gain permanent residency. Records show Yennis Escobar has indeed been permitted to stay in Canada. As her official sponsor, Vanderhorst is on the hook for her financially until 2013, though he says no claims have been made on him so far.

As emotionally upsetting as his situation is, it may not be unique. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said last week that so-called marriages of convenience are "one of the most frequent forms of immigration fraud."

So frequent, apparently, that a group of about 100 Canadians who say they are victims of such marriage fraud recently started legal action against Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). Members of Canadians Against Immigration Fraud say their complaints have gone uninvestigated by the department and the Canada Border Services Agency.

But Vanderhorst's experience shows how difficult it is to prove bad faith or misrepresentation by a sponsored partner.

When Yennis Escobar disappeared, Vanderhorst says, he heard through the grapevine that she was in Montreal. He bought an ad in Le Journal de Montreal asking her to contact him. She did but there was no reconciliation.

Next, Vanderhorst turned to CIC, complaining that his fiancee had broken the terms of the sponsorship, which specified that the couple had to marry within 90 days of her arrival.

The department was slow to react, he says, despite his frequent calls and visits. He says he was told that he had signed the sponsorship agreement and that nothing could be done.

A spokesman for CIC said the department can't comment on individual cases without a waiver from the parties. Despite repeated efforts, Sun Media has been unable to locate Yennis Escobar. Stefania Mesesan, a neighbour in the apartment building Escobar used to live in, said the woman had been at the building about a month ago.

Vanderhorst also went to his MP, who wrote letters to the immigration minister. And he filed an Access to Information request. In 2005, he received details of Escobar's status.

The files illustrate the difficulty people face if they make an accusation against a foreign national they've sponsored.

The documents show Escobar was interviewed by an immigration officer Feb. 17, 2004, eight months after she left her fiance. She told the officer that Vanderhorst was "aggressive" during the brief time she lived with him and threw out the forms she was to complete for her social insurance and health cards. She said she was afraid of him.

She also said he refused to marry her and told her he would be sending her home in two weeks.

He spoke to her harshly and told her they would not have children, she said. She said he went to Cuba after she left and threatened her mother.

In observation notes, a CIC official concluded, "This is another case of he says, she says."

In September 2004, Vanderhorst spoke with the immigration officer who had interviewed Yennis Escobar. In summary notes, the officer says she found him more worried about his 10-year sponsorship than anything else.

A letter from then-immigration minister Judy Sgro to Vanderhorst's MP notes that CIC officials spoke with Vanderhorst several times after Escobar left. The letter also reminded him he had signed a 10-year sponsorship.

Vanderhorst flatly denies all Escobar's accusations. He readily admits he told her when she arrived that they had lots of time to marry - 90 days, in fact - under the sponsorship terms. He says he was never violent toward her. He admits to visiting her mother in Cuba, but he says it was to tell her what her daughter had done.

"It was horrifying to read this," he says of the records he obtained. "Don't I have a little more credibility than she does?

"To make it Plain Jane: if you love somebody, you're just gonna take off after 17 days? Does that make sense?"

christina.spencer@sunmedia.ca

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FIGHTING MARRIAGE FAKES

Canada plans to tighten its policies for preventing people from gaining permanent residency though marriage fraud.

CIC spokesman Nicolas Fortier said the department is doing additional training in interview and investigative techniques for visa officers in Canadian missions abroad. The department is also seeking advice from the provinces and cultural groups.

Visa officers don't interview every applicant for whom a sponsorship application is made; that depends on the specific case. Fortier couldn't estimate the number of immigration marriage frauds but Minister Jason Kenney says it's "very widespread." Julie Taub, an Ottawa immigration lawyer, said Ontario alone may have 3,000 cases.