The 130 foreign students arrested for enroling at a fake university allegedly to remain in the US are largely Indians and were not aware of the varsity's illegitimate operation, immigration attorneys have said while criticising authorities for using "troubling" methods to trap them.
The university in Detroit's Farmington Hills was part of an undercover operation by the Department of Homeland Security designed to expose immigration fraud, according to federal prosecutors who announced charges in the case.
In what the authorities called a "pay-to-stay" scheme, foreign students knowingly enrolled in the fake school to falsely maintain their student visa status and remain in the United States, according to prosecutors.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents made the arrests in the early morning hours Wednesday, the same day federal indictments were unsealed that charged eight people, all of whom are either Indian nationals or Indian Americans -- in a visa fraud scheme.
The eight defendants were charged criminally for conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harbouring aliens for profit. But the 130 students were arrested on only civil immigration charges, Detroit Free Press reported.
The sweep was one of the largest targeting immigrants from India in recent years, immigration attorneys said.
In a nationwide sweep, federal agents with ICE arrested "130 foreign nationals on civil immigration charges," ICE spokesperson Carissa Cutrell told the Free Press on Thursday.
"This may increase."
Ravi Mannam, an immigration attorney in Atlanta, said the government's fake university "kind of hooked these students by promising them credits for their previous master's programs."
"There are specific universities who have advanced degree programmes that primarily involved practical training from day one that allows them to enroll and the bulk of the time is spent working," Sofo said. The courses "can be done at a remote location. It doesn't have to be where they attend the university. ... Programs like this exist and they are legal."
In New Delhi, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, "We are aware about this incident. We are ascertaining more details (through) our embassy in Washington and different consulates in the US."
On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security shut down a website they had been created for the University of Farmington. On the website, it now reads: "The University of Farmington has been closed by the US Department of Homeland Security, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
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