CBP Still Arresting Immigrants Trying To Stay In The Country By Furthering Their Education

Computers

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.

Filed Under: cbp, dhs, fake university, ice, immigration
Companies: university of farmington