ICE Lures Foreign Students To The US, Takes Their Money, Deports Them
An essential part of being deemed criminal (in a fair, democratic society) is having some idea you've committed a crime.
Harvey Silverglate, who started the campus free speech-defending organization theFIRE.org, has a book called "Three Felonies a Day," about the absurd overlegislation in our countries that means that each of us is likely unwittingly guilty of committing three felonies every day. (Is that pretty feather you picked up from a pigeon or...gong!...from an eagle? The latter? You're a felon!)
I am with Milton Friedman on open immigration, which is to say I don't think we can have it while we have a welfare state.
But this action by ICE -- entrapment of foreign students -- is simply obscene. They lured foreign students to a supposed university in my hometown of Farmington Hills, Michigan. The students obtained valid visas to come. However, because the university was fake -- didn't actually exist and had no accreditation, the students visas were invalid and ICE set about deporting them.
From the Detroit Free Press's Niraj Warikoo:
About 90 additional foreign students of a fake university in metro Detroit created by the Department of Homeland Security have been arrested in recent months.A total of about 250 students have now been arrested since January on immigration violations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of a sting operation by federal agents who enticed foreign-born students, mostly from India, to attend the school that marketed itself as offering graduate programs in technology and computer studies, according to ICE officials.
Many of those arrested have been deported to India while others are contesting their removals. One has been allowed to stay after being granted lawful permanent resident status by an immigration judge.
The students had arrived legally in the U.S. on student visas, but since the University of Farmington was later revealed to be a creation of federal agents, they lost their immigration status after it was shut down in January. The school was located on Northwestern Highway near 13 Mile Road in Farmington Hills and staffed with undercover agents posing as university officials.
Out of the approximately 250 students arrested on administrative charges, "nearly 80% were granted voluntary departure and departed the United States," the Detroit office of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) told the Free Press in a statement Tuesday.
...Attorneys for the students arrested said they were unfairly trapped by the U.S. government since the Department of Homeland Security had said on its website that the university was legitimate. An accreditation agency that was working with the U.S. on its sting operation also listed the university as legitimate.
Sick.
It gets worse. ICE defrauded these students and kept their money:
Emails obtained by the Free Press earlier this year showed how the fake university attracted students to the university, which cost about $12,000 on average in tuition and fees per year.The U.S. "trapped the vulnerable people who just wanted to maintain (legal immigration) status," Rahul Reddy, a Texas attorney who represented or advised some of the students arrested, told the Free Press this week. "They preyed upon on them."
The fake university is believed to have collected millions of dollars from the unsuspecting students. An email from the university's president, named Ali Milani, told students that graduate programs' tuition is $2,500 per quarter and the average cost is $1,000 per month.
"They made a lot of money," Reddy said of the U.S. government.
Reddy said that two of the students who were sent back to India through a voluntary departure agreement with ICE were denied entry into the U.S. after they tried to reenter this year.
No one has filed a lawsuit or claim against the U.S. government for collecting the money or for allegedly entrapping the students.
And he's right:
This is actually bad even if the prospective students were looking to immigrate using fraudulent student visas. It's basically entrapment. Why create a fake University ?
— Farooq Butt (@fmbutt) November 29, 2019
Amy is right; this situation is just noxious. I support ICE, and all the good work they do, but this seems a case of misplaced priorities. They have the time and resources to do this, but can't be bothered to harvest the low-hanging fruit found in the parking lot of my neighborhood Home Depot.
And to be honest, I'd far rather have an overabundance of East Asians in the country than I would a glut of uneducated third-worlders. The East Asians are far more interested in furthering themselves through education and hard work, and tend not to engage in too much criminal activity. The same cannot be said of illegal aliens from Mexico and Latin America.
roadgeek at November 30, 2019 7:47 AM
All I can say about this is: Thanks Obama.
Sixclaws at November 30, 2019 8:44 AM
This isn't in the article (and I'm probably reading too much into this), but I get the idea the university was originally set up to catch students who were already aware they were in the U.S. illegally (because their parents brought them here when they were young). If someone did an Internet search for schools that didn't delve too deeply into someone's immigration status, this school would show up. It's likely that when they started getting queries from those with expiring student visas (and money), ICE decided to change its strategy.
Fayd at November 30, 2019 9:21 AM
Some police departments do the same thing with the mentally disabled. An undercover cop gets them started in the drug business and after a few years they then arrest them. It totally perverts the purpose. But rather than doing all the work chasing down drug dealers who may be well armed and have lawyers manufacturing your own drug dealers is easier.
Ben at November 30, 2019 10:10 AM
This is a wrinkle that I didn't know about. So they were catching students who got VALID Visas to attend a bogus university designed to catch OVERSTAYERS? Hopefully, they will get off. As for the actual overstayers who got caught: bye-bye!
And which federal employee was so daft that he gave these people valid visas to attend a bogus university designed to ensnare illegal aliens???
mpetrie98 at November 30, 2019 4:24 PM
The fake university is believed to have collected millions of dollars from the unsuspecting students. An email from the university's president, named Ali Milani, told students that graduate programs' tuition is $2,500 per quarter and the average cost is $1,000 per month.
"They made a lot of money," Reddy said of the U.S. government.
And there you have it: put on a scam because somebody higher up wanted a fancy new desk in his office. After all, it's not as though the federal government is spending nearly $1 trillion more than it takes in each year. /sarc
mpetrie98 at November 30, 2019 4:34 PM
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