CBP Still Arresting Immigrants Trying To Stay In The Country By Furthering Their Education
from the bad-hombre,-ph.d. dept
Looks like ICE isn't finished protecting the nation from dangerous immigrants seeking to… attend local universities. A massive sting operation involving a fake college, fake accreditation, and hundreds of immigrants who paid for classes but received nothing more than an arrest in exchange for their cash is apparently still ongoing.
Federal immigration officials have arrested more students who were enrolled at a fake university in metro Detroit.
And many of the students who enrolled at the university created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are now in the process of being removed from the U.S. as Indian-American advocates grapple with what they say is an unprecedented number of arrests of Indian students.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested 161 foreign students from the University of Farmington on civil immigration violations, ICE spokesman Khaalid Walls said this week.
To be clear, most of the students detained or arrested were doing exactly what the law allows them to do: stay in US while continuing their education. A (manufactured) shortage of H1-B visas made this the only legal option for many of these students. According to the lawyers representing the students, a majority of those arrested were enrolled in master's degree programs at the fake school. They had paid tuition and were fully expecting to be able to attend school while waiting for H1-B slots to open up.
It was ICE that arbitrarily decided attempting to follow the law was the equivalent of illegally overstaying their visas. The students thought they were dealing with a legit operation, which is exactly what ICE wanted them to think. It even secured accreditation for its fake school to better sell the false promise of students being able to do exactly what immigration law allowed them to do.
And for that, they're being arrested and deported. While ICE may have rounded up a few scammers selling students access to something they already rightfully had access to, the biggest scam was run by the government. The government created a fake school, took students' real money, and arrested them for trying to extend their stays legally.
Hopefully, this will see ICE hit with a number of lawsuits. It's difficult to imagine a court being OK with the details of this sting operation -- one that targeted immigrants and visitors trying to extend their stays lawfully. This is the kind of thing that "shocks the conscience," a legal term of art that leaves participating personnel and agencies with almost no legal defense for their actions and courts ready to step in and right the wrongs.
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Filed Under: cbp, dhs, fake university, ice, immigration
Companies: university of farmington
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accreditation
The opening paragraph said "fake accreditation". Was the school accredited or not? If it was, don't the students technically meet the visa requirements?
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Re: accreditation
In the previous article Tim said:
At the request of DHS, a national accreditation agency listed the University of Farmington as being accredited in order to help deceive prospective students.
So they were really listed as an accredited school. Does being listed make them accredited or not? Either way, they were a fake school.
But prospective students would have every reason to believe the listing was genuine.
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Re: accreditation
It was accredited, but the accreditation was fake because the school didn't actually pass any of the requirements needed to obtain it. The accreditation board just handed it out because the government said to. Even though it looks real on the surface, there was nothing real about it.
This is the kind of thing that should result in whatever accrediting organization issued it being dropped by every school in the nation.
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Re: Re: accreditation
How is the ACLU not all over this?
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Re: Re: accreditation
OK, I looked into this a bit more... Wikipedia claims the fake university was approved by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which is what an educational visa requires. By that logic, the students shouldn't be kicked out. SEVP is run by the ever-trustworthy ICE agency, meaning ICE approved themselves. Schools that "drop" this status would be unable to accept most foreign students.
The accreditors were the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs and the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges. They don't mean anything to visa policy, but it may not be practical for Michigan universities to drop the former accreditation.
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Re: Re: Re: accreditation
Bottom line the government didn't attempt to present a sham school. The used powers that ordinary scam artists wouldn't be able to do to establish this school.
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"Attempting to follow the law"... LOL
What a crock of $hit this article is. Please learn something about immigration FRAUD and how pervasive it is. Christ, you don't even know the difference between CPB and ICE.
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Re:
Yes, we understand that you are a racist piece of trash Jake. Thanks for letting us know.
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It doesn't seem that difficult. ATF's fake stash houses containing large amounts of highly valuable fictitious drugs, guarded by well-armed fictitious drug runners, are at least as shocking, and did not receive nearly the smackdown that they deserved. Why would courts look less favorably on ICE arranging civil entrapment than they do on ATF arranging criminal entrapment?
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Re: Re: Re: accreditation
I have no idea. Grand theft by deception. Fraudulent misrepresentation. Falsification of accreditation. Trademark infringement. (Yes, I said trademark infringement, with the University of Farmington in Maine.) Causing crimes to be committed by people who were law-abiding, depriving them of a legal benefit. A bonus for just being plain old a$$holes.
It should be good for around $250,000 per student. ICE can pay for this instead of the wall.
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Re:
There is a difference between convincing people to invest themselves in imaginary crimes and convincing them to invest themselves in imaginary legal endeavours.
The former reap the consequences for what they intended to do. The latter don't.
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Re: Re:
The first is criminal conspiracy, the second is fraud.
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And this is why sting operations should be illegal. It's to easy for them to be abused, and the police should not be goading or tricking people into breaking the law in any way, shape, or form for any reason. Deception is not the way to earn the people's trust.
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Re: Re:
Convincing people to commit crimes is the definition of entrapment, and is a good way to get a criminal charge dismissed.
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Like the Aereo debacle, obeying the law is the new breaking the law.
Next, cops will be giving tickets to everybody who is driving safely and legally, and the courts will be allowing it, on the basis that NOT speeding means you're actually TRYING to speed.
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Re:
Close.
It's actually "Following driving law means you're trying not to attract attention because you're smuggling drugs."
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The numbers aren't going to artificially inflate themselves
Teach them to try to stay in the country legally by furthering their education.
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how much for my fake degree, i need one too
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Re: Re: Re: Re: accreditation
Don't forget embezzlement (funneling tuition money paid to a school away from the school) and conspiracy to commit deprivation of rights under color of law.
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Re:
$1500-$35,000, but you're too late. Trump University shut down in 2010.
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