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.
This is the building at 30500 Northwestern Hwy. in Farmington Hills south of 13 Mile Rd. that was used as the fake University of Farmington campus created by the Department of Homeland Security as part of a sting operation targeting foreign students, seen on Thursday, February 7, 2019, in Farmington Hills.
This is the building at 30500 Northwestern Hwy. in Farmington Hills south of 13 Mile Rd. that was used as the fake University of Farmington campus created by the Department of Homeland Security as part of a sting operation targeting foreign students, seen on Thursday, February 7, 2019, in Farmington Hills. (Photo: Eric Seals, Detroit Free Press)
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.
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Out of the remaining 20%, about half of them have received a final order of removal; some of them were ordered removed by an immigration judge, and others “were given an expedited removal by U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” said HSI Detroit.
[‘It was a pleasure speaking with you’: Emails reveal how university portrayed itself to potential students. Read more here.]
The remaining 10% “have either filed for some sort of relief or are contesting their removals with Executive Office for Immigration Review,” said HSI Detroit.
ICE said in March that 161 students had been arrested, which has now increased to about 250; the 250 arrests took place from January to July, said an ICE spokesperson.
Meanwhile, seven of the eight recruiters who were criminally charged for trying to recruit students have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced in Detroit, including Prem Rampeesa, 27, last week. The remaining one is to be sentenced in January.
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.
More: ICE arrests more students at fake university, others being removed from US
More: Attorney: Fake Farmington university sting by ICE was entrapment
There were more than 600 students enrolled at the university, which was created a few years ago by federal law enforcement officials with ICE. Records filed with the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) show that the University of Farmington was incorporated in January 2016.
Many of the students had enrolled with the university through a program known as Curricular Practical Training (CPT), which allows students to work in the U.S through a F-1 visa program for foreign students. Some had transferred to the University of Farmington from other schools that had lost accreditation, which means they would no longer be in immigration status and allowed to remain in the U.S.
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.
University of Farmington office in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Photo taken in 2017.
University of Farmington office in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Photo taken in 2017. (Photo: Matt Friedman/Tanner Friedman Strategic Communications)
No one has filed a lawsuit or claim against the U.S. government for collecting the money or for allegedly entrapping the students.
Attorneys for ICE and the Department of Justice maintain that the students should have known it was not a legitimate university because it did not have classes in a physical location. Some CPT programs have classes combined with work programs at companies.
“Their true intent could not be clearer,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Helms wrote in a sentencing memo this month for Rampeesa, one of the eight recruiters, of the hundreds of students enrolled. “While ‘enrolled’ at the University, one hundred percent of the foreign citizen students never spent a single second in a classroom. If it were truly about obtaining an education, the University would not have been able to attract anyone, because it had no teachers, classes, or educational services.”
In the memo, federal prosecutor Baker said the case raises questions about the U.S. “foreign-student visa program.”
Baker wrote that “immigration and visa programs have been hot-button topics in the United States for years and national scrutiny has only been increasing. Fairly or unfairly, Rampeesa’s conduct casts a shadow on the foreign-student visa program in general, and it raises questions as to whether the potential for abuse threatens to outweigh the benefits.”
Reddy said, though, that in some cases, students who transferred out from the University of Farmington after realizing they didn’t have classes on-site, were still arrested.
Admissions section of the website of the University of Farmington, a fake university created by ICE and Dept. of Homeland Security. It reads: “We are very excited about welcoming you to the UF community and helping you”
Admissions section of the website of the University of Farmington, a fake university created by ICE and Dept. of Homeland Security. It reads: “We are very excited about welcoming you to the UF community and helping you” (Photo: Department of Homeland Security)
Rampeesa was sentenced Nov, 19 to one year in prison by Judge Gershwin Drain of U.S. District Court in Detroit. With time already served of 295 days, he should be out in about two to three months, and will then be deported to India, said his attorney Wanda Cal. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harbor aliens for profit.
Detroit ICE spokesman Khaalid Walls said the other recruiters sentenced so far are Barath Kakireddy, 29, of Lake Mary, Florida, 18 months; Suresh Kandala, 31, of Culpeper, Virginia, 18 months; Santosh Sama, 28, of Fremont, California, 24 months; Avinash Thakkallapally, 28, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 15 months; Aswanth Nune, 26, of Atlanta, Georgia, 12 months; Naveen Prathipati, 26, of Dallas, Texas, 12 months.
Phanideep Karnati, 35, of Louisville, Kentucky, is to be sentenced in January.
In court, Rampeesa’s attorney, Cal, said his client had no criminal record and came from a rural background in India.
He was trying to “help his family back home,” Cal said before Judge Drain. “My client is very remorseful. He is really a good person caught up in a bad situation.”
Rampeesa arrived in the U.S. legally a few years ago on a student visa and earned in 2016 a master’s degree in computer science at Northwestern Polytechnic University. But the university later lost its accreditation, which put his immigration status in jeopardy. He had spent $40,000 in tuition and fees for his studies at the university.
“He was desperate to find a way to stay in the United States,” Rampeesa’s attorney, Cal, wrote in his sentencing memo. He wanted to get a Ph.D. in computer science, she said.
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Rampeesa then met Sama, who recruited him to attend the University of Farmington and told him he could get tuition credits if he recruited other students, Cal said.
Sama and Rampeesa were working with people they thought were university officials, but were actually undercover agents for the Department of Homeland Security.
“My client has no other criminal history, not even a traffic ticket,” Cal said in court last week.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Baker said in court that Rampeesa was “aware it was completely fake,” that “it was just for maintaining status.”
“He chose the University of Farmington for a reason,” Baker said of Rampeesa.
In calling for a sentence of 24 to 30 months, Baker said: “It’s important to send a message … this type of crime will not be tolerated.”
Accompanying Baker in the court last week was Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet, who helped prosecute the case.
They have nothing else to do because the mexicans and other central americans are too slippery for them to catch :ngakak and the ones who they catch have to be release soon after because in no way traditional law enforcement agencies letting them overwhelm their detention facilities with people on whats broadly perseived as a civil matter! jail/detention facilities overwhelmed, immigration court system overwhelmed, law enforcement officers are kicking up a storm about the inconvenience, so are immigration judges, everybody is frustrated, so whats next? set your sights on another dimension of the vulnerable! because I’d really like to know the purpose of setting up a fake institution, lure foreign students through a legal process who yearn for a better education to come to that institution, and then arrest them for deportation! waste of time and resources! if its meant as a deterrent to whats perseived as the H1B visa exploitation its not going to work! why not direct that resource where its needed! like in the carribean sea region to combat the flow of drugs to the US or the flow of guns to the carribean! OR USE THAT RESOURCE TO BOLSTER INTELLIGENCE TO PIN POINT WHO TRAFFICKING SPOILED HERION FROM PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN TO THE MIDWEST IN C-130 AND OTHER MILITARY AIRCRAFTS, AND THE SPOILED HEROIN IS KILLING AMERICAN CITIZENS IN THOSE MIDWEST STATES IN RECORD NUMBERS :travel thats where you need to put your time and resources DHS! not targeting the week and vulnerable! :thumbup
What ICE is doing is fraud, they advertise the college as legitimate, the applicants apply for a legal visa and enter the country legally, ICE cannot blame the students for what seems a legitimate procedure…
THAT IS MADNESS ON STEROIDS, goes to show how stupid and dune even officials can be…
Dat Mi Seh
Dat Mi Seh! for once we agree on something :2thumbup
*weak and vulnerable*
Love this reply- you’ve helped sum up what this whole b-shit “set-up” was aiming to achieve, because I was confused as hell.
Thank you.
Jah know! The US is really creative in getting their message out, loud and clear. Everybody want American education, there you go, you get it through the door…..
Trump administration gwan do your work. After all these were things you campaign on
Chari! there is no message getting out when smugglers and cartels are using ladders to scale, saws and other cutting tools to cut huge chunks of the “big bautiful wall” out and drive vehicles loaded with drugs and other contraband through to the US side with ease! why because CBP agents are getting paid big bucks to look the other way or change their patrol route at certain given time so the smugglers can circumvent! thats the “message!” and there is absolutely nothing “creative” about that! again? a waste of time and resources!
again! resources should be directed to pin point:
1. which military personnel (s) $hipping the drugs from PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN in military cargo planes and aircrafts which doesn’t go through routine checkpoint or inspection like a port of entry!
2. how many “white” motorcycle gangs out west, cushioned and insulated by “white privilege” that those drugs are fenced to for mass distribution to kill fellow citizens and create a pandemic for profit to healthcare and bio-pharma stakeholders!
3. who/what is behind the “birth tourism” with russian billionaires and oligarchs at the centerfold! who’s looking deeper to see the connection between the “birth tourism” and shady money invested in the US, including into your “president’s” entity!
4. why is the cost guard budget for manning and securing the Florida straits and the caribbean sea slashed?
please don’t be one of the sheeps :thumbup
There are literally hundreds of thousands of “students” in the USA on Student Visas who are technically out of status because they are technically NOT enrolled in an accredited degree granting tertiary institution, Many came to the USA on student visas, but had no intention to complete their degree and stop attending college and are MIA.
There are a number of institutions that were created for the sole purpose of getting applicants, students visas, not granting any legitimate college degree. Northwestern Polytechnic University is one such university. So the Fake University was an attempt at catching as many students who were out of status and could not be located within the USA. A good number of these so-called students are actually terrorist. Yes, there were students who came from overseas to the Fake University, but it was an attempt to maintain the cover.
Foreign nations are worst than ICE for letting their citizens get shit on by foreign entities. The Indian government should petition/sue the US government for return of the monies along with damages.
Where is the bastards that recruit them to the fake school that assisted in getting the people dem the student visas? No violations took place unless they detoured from schools they originally applied to the student visa app.
Dis is predatory behavior. The international courts should get involve!
Phantom Phoenix! a prime example is the massive raid earlier this year in Mississippi that net hundreds of supposedly undocumented immigrants at the food processing plant after lengthy intelligence work! its very interesting how the intelligence can lead to the vulnerable but not to the actual culprits! we’re still waiting on the press conference about how the “employers” and “recruiters” and “agencies” who help facilitate those violations were dealt with as equal to the “vulnerables” Anonymous 10:17am can probably answer that one! :travel
YOU are a big hypocrite. You are here in US reaping all its benefits and yet spouting your anti-American nonsense. If you do not like the US, just leave now. You are here over 40 years, yes? Moron!!!!
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Thousands-of-Foreign-Students-May-Have-Overstayed-Visas-Through-Employment-at-Shell-Companies-565558112.html
Anonymous 4:22pm! arrogance and ignorance will be the destruction of “dump supporters” :thumbup so because someone who wasn’t born here and was granted the privilege to be here, should be silent and mum about bias, injustice, culpability, or govt/authorities misdoings? and worst of all if people are vocal about mishaps and flaws they’re rendered “un-american” or “unpatriotic?” unless you are a Native American, you shouldn’t be the one telling anyone to leave! its even worst if you aren’t a W.A.S.P! because if you are not of the above mentioned, its a privilege for you just like us, always remember, the 14 amendment was a privilege given to you by white supremacy after your status was in question after centuries under the whip to build them theirs(always remember that) since this M.A.G.A. movement, a lot of you “house slaves” who were only born here believe that you got some type of “vocal power” and thats all it is, “vocal” and nothing else! your sister and brother, “autie-jane candace owens” and “uncle-tom brandon tatum, dupree, alan west” just to name a few are perfect examples! get one thing straight! white supremacists will never ever regard you people! doesn’t matter how “patriotic” or “American” y’all protray yourself to be! and no matter how much you “house slaves” ponder to them! just ask OMAROSA MAUDIGAULT! word from the wise!
Again! every non native born in America APPRECIATE the PRIVILEGE granted by the US govt. and the people to be here! but we pay taxes for everything except our mouth so we are free to exercise our thoughts, views and opinions on anything we interpret as unorthodox and we will not relent, not even under this current administration :2thumbup if you don’t like our comments on PINKWALL kindly tune in to Breitbart News, Faux News or white supremacist “the daily call” websites :2thumbup
Again! the 14th Amendment was a “constitutional privilege” given to you by white supremacy after you were rendered 3/5 human and a “property” :thumbup nothing more! nothing else! if you’re not a W.A.S.P(thats who the construction was written for, of the people, for the people, by the people, meant only one type of people at that time) don’t play yourself in that mind game, you were only born here and that 14th Amendment only “validate” the recognition of your birth! nothing more! nothing else! :travel