USA TODAY International Edition
ICE defends fake university that lured foreign students
Spokesman: Students were in the know
DETROIT – Federal law enforcement agencies in Detroit are defending the government’s creation of a fake university in Michigan and the arrests of 250 of its students amid a national debate over the sting operation by U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In statements Friday to the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, the U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and the head of the investigative division of ICE in Detroit said the undercover operations targeting students at the University of Farmington in Farmington Hills, Michigan, were legitimate and aimed at fighting visa fraud.
Federal prosecutors announced in January that agents with ICE had secretly set up the fake university, which enrolled more than 600 foreign students studying science and technology. The Department of Justice called it a “pay to stay” scheme.
A Free Press report two weeks ago revealed that the number of students arrested on immigration violations in the case had risen to 250. The story drew widespread attention, with a number of other media outlets picking up the story and several political leaders such as U. S. Reps. Elissa Slotkin, D- Mich., and Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez, D- N. Y., U. S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D- Calif., former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El- Sayed, and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, DMass., criticizing the sting or raising questions about it.
“This is cruel and appalling,” Warren said on Twitter. “These students simply dreamed of getting the high- quality higher education America can offer. ICE deceived and entrapped them, just to deport them.”
Slotkin said Saturday that the case “raises a number of serious questions, and I’ll be following up to ensure they are answered.” Harris called it “cruel” and “a waste of taxpayer dollars. Officials must be held accountable.”
But Vance Callender, special agent in charge of the Detroit office of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations ( HSI), said in a statement to the Free Press that “HSI special agents... made it abundantly clear in their interactions with potential University of Farmington enrollees that the school did not offer academic or vocational programs of any kind. The individuals who enrolled in the University of Farmington did so intentionally.”
The students had arrived legally, mostly from India, and were on F- 1 student visa programs when they enrolled at the university that was secretly staffed by undercover agents and had a fake website. Nearly 80% of the 250 detained students have been removed from the U. S., said ICE.
Callender of ICE’s HSI said the students “knew the school did not offer courses or confer degrees, and remained enrolled for about 18 months, even though they never attended one single class. They violated the terms of their non- immigrant status in the U. S. by using the F- 1 program as a pay- tostay scheme. Investigations like these provide firsthand evidence of how people exploit the non- immigrant student visa system. This improves the agency’s efforts to uncover fraud, protects the integrity of the system for legitimate students and serves as a deterrent to potential violators.”
Defense attorneys for the students have said they believe they were entrapped and didn’t realize the university was fake when they enrolled.