[Kailou]

Yeah i think i'm reading that wrong, but it seems like the students are attempting to study in the country and applying to University through legal means, then getting deported as it's a fake university.

I'm clearly missing something here.

[rufus_3]

The "students" were enrolling in a university that had "had no teachers, classes, or educational services" as a means to game the F-1 visa program. Their goal was to falsely claim they were enrolled in education in order to avoid deportation.

[olliej]

No, the students wanted to go to a US university - a reasonable thing to do, because US degrees are often more valuable than local ones.

So they went to the accreditation agency to get a list of universities to apply to.

They applied to those universities.

They got accepted by the fraudulent university.

The got their visas - after following all of the rules that they were meant to.

They arrived in the country.

They paid their fees to the university.

Once ICE got the money, they arrested all the victims of this fraud, and deported them so that it would become essentially impossible to get back the money ICE fraudulently stole from them.

What part of this is not

* fraud?

* entrapment

* theft

Especially now that the victims will have to check the “I have been deported from the US” box forever, and that alone is grounds to be rejected entry. So even if they do get the money ICE stole back, they are unlikely to ever be able to get a job for an American owned company, or that requires travel to America.

I want you to go through these steps and tell me which step taken by the victims was wrong, because you seem to be saying that the victims were committing fraud and it seems you must know something not in the article.

[yumraj]

That doesn't seem correct. Moreover a student has no means to determine if a University has no teachers, other than verifying relevant Government databases.

According to the article: 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.

[jka]

It's not particularly clear at least from the website (which initially looks fairly legitimate, and has a .edu domain name) that there were no classes, and it does state that they offer F-1 visas.

It's possible that some of the students had transferred from other educational institutions and did indeed want to remain in the U.S. - it's a huge matter of prestige and hope for some families to send their children to the U.S. for education.

I'm sure there's some aspect of gaming going on with educational visas; what I'm not convinced about is whether setting up elaborate (and likely expensive) schemes like this -- which end up seeming a lot like entrapment, and risk criminalizing and punishing vulnerable individuals -- is the best way to approach handling the problem.

[justinclift]

The article should probably have lead with that. ;)

This bit though, seems kind of sick:

> ... in some cases, students who transferred out from the University of Farmington after realizing they didn't have classes on-site, were still arrested.

Sounds like they went after students who realised it was fake then transferred to a real Uni too. That's not good.

[olliej]

Presumably because by deporting them it becomes harder for the victims to get back the money they were defrauded out of.

[Shorel]

That's a valid argument, if it can be proven.

But, how could the students find that out before travelling and visiting the University?

It seems to me that many caught were acting on good faith.