Till Thursday, 129 Indians who had enrolled at a fake university which was run by undercover agents in Detroit, Michigan have been arrested by US authorities. The university was set up to expose a “pay-to-stay” immigration fraud. The arrested Indians have been placed in “removal proceedings”, having been marked for deportation. They will remain in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) until the conclusion of their case by immigration courts.
“As of yesterday morning, ICE had administratively arrested 130 foreign nationals enrolled at the University of Farmington for civil immigration violations,” Carissa Cutrell, a spokesperson for ICE, wrote in an email. Of the 130, she added, 129 were Indian nationals.
Indian embassy in Washington DC has been in touch with US officials and has sought consular access to the arrested students and officials have said they are doing all they can, to help. Most of the affected are from Telengana and Andhra Pradesh and are also receiving help from community associations.
Prosecutors, however, have argued the students knew what they were getting into. “Their intent was to fraudulently maintain their student visa status and to obtain work authorization under the CPT (a course-related curricular training programme that allows off-campus work authorization for foreign students)”, said the lawyers.