University of Northern New Jersey was set up to lure criminals who defrauded over 1,000 foreigners, who now face deportation, in ‘pay to stay’ enterprises
The website for University of Northern New Jersey, a phony university set up by US government to lure criminal who defraud student and exchange visitor program. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters
The US government set up a bogus college called the University of Northern New Jersey as a trap to arrest 21 people on charges they conspired to help more than 1,000 foreigners fraudulently keep or obtain student or work visas over the past 2½ years.
Now those overseas students face being deported from the United States for buying visas, in an alleged immigration scam worth up to $1m.
“They were all willing participants in this sophisticated scheme from the very beginning,” Will Skaggs, a spokesman for the US attorney’s office for New Jersey, said on Wednesday.
Federal agents created the fake University of Northern New Jersey more than two years ago and on Tuesday arrested 21 middlemen who operated from coast to coast running “pay to stay” enterprises that foreign students used to remain in America beyond their allotted legal study time.
The 21 have made initial appearances in court and are expected to be arraigned in federal court in Newark at a later date still to be scheduled, to face charges that include conspiracy to commit visa fraud and conspiracy to harbor aliens for profit.
Those arrested were mostly brokers who recruited foreign students, who were mainly from China and India and knew they were signing up for a university that was fake, according to the authorities, though not that it had been invented by federal agents in order to expose the scam.
The middlemen promised them study visas and visa extensions or foreign worker visas in a system of fees and kickbacks that netted the brokers as much as $1,000 per student, according to the US attorney’s office.
Further, some of the students used the visas issued through the bogus scheme to get jobs at companies such as Apple, Facebook and Morgan Stanley, as well as one who joined the US army, according to a report in the New York Times.
The students will not face further punishment beyond being thrown out of the country. But the middlemen who were arrested face potential maximum punishments of 10 years in prison.
In addition to brokers, the 21 defendants include recruiters and employers, both men and women, from a variety of locations in the states of New York, California, Georgia, Illinois and New Jersey.
Paul Fishman, US attorney for New Jersey, announced the arrests in Newark on Tuesday and said that the government had originally established the facade of the University of Northern New Jersey in September 2013.
He said the sting exposed the type of alleged criminal scheme that threatened not only the legitimate visa system but US national security.
The defendants had not conducted background checks on their student clients, the authorities said, although the individuals would have originally been screened by the government in order to enter the US in the first place.
The Departments of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted the investigation and set up undercover agents to pose as staff at the fake university, which had its own website.
The UNNJ presented itself as a for-profit college located in Cranford, New Jersey.
“They did not even need to solicit anyone, the brokers came to them, bringing in students – who were looking for people to help them stay in the country,” said Skaggs.
The middlemen appeared to have years of experience and are alleged to have facilitated the creation of false student records and diplomas, “which were purchased by their foreign national conspirators for the purpose of deceiving the immigration authorities”, a statement from Fishman’s office said.
“This was not their first rodeo, as it were,” Skaggs said.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/06/fake-college-visa-scam-immigration-arrests-university-northern-new-jersey
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