ICE set up a fake university; 100s enrolled, not realizing it was a sting op
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
ICE as it exists should be abolished. Even some ICE old-timers who were doing its real work say so. A new agency with ICE's original charter would be a reasonable thing to have, but there's no way to get that under the current structure.
One of the strong points of the current president is kicking out illegals, so it could be argued that abolishing the ICE would be simply antidemocratic.
Personally I don’t think the president has any strong points other than being a racist, misogenoist, pathological liar, and narcissist.
At a minimum, refer to them as unauthorized immigrants, since that is the distinguishing factor from a public policy perspective.
No more than labelling those who commit crimes as criminals.
Subjects of foreign states — i.e. aliens — who are present illegally are illegal aliens. That's what they are (in addition, of course, to being human beings, with parents and rights and hopes and dreams and all the rest).
Labelling them 'undocumented immigrants' is a bit too cute, since many of them do retain the identifying documentation issued by their states. It's also begging the question of whether they should be immigrating at all.
For myself, I philosophically tend towards completely open borders, but I do wonder about the practical implications, and I dislike the blatant dishonesty & appeals to emotion common on both sides of the issue.
These are people who are inside the US in violation of immigration law.
It makes sense to complain, criticise or defend those decisions.
The executive body already has implicit legislative power. There are 2 arguments. How they use that power, and whether they should have it in the first place.
You can have both of those arguments simultaneously.
"We won't prosecute this or that crime" is even sometimes announced.
You can complain about the long term problem, and the short term problem at the same time.
Speculating here, but what if the 8 recruiters who were charged are people who make a business out of finding people with expiring visas, and counseling them about ways to stay in the country, while charging them a fee? "Hey, I heard you have visa troubles. You give me $1,000 plus expenses, and I make those visa troubles disappear." If it's something like that, then heck yeah resources should be devoted to catching those guys!
How would you like to pay for it out of your own pocket then? Even if it cost no more than several ICE agents' time, it's still a much more significant waste than you're trying to portray. Let's try to keep this factual, OK?
The fact that you say "those guys" is telling. The focus should be on efficiency and effectiveness relative to ICE's mission, not on making sure that "we're hurting the right people" (as the unintentionally-honest meme goes).
>hurting the right people
No-one wants to hurt people just for fun. I speculated about a situation in which the charged recruiters would unambiguously be harming society and it would be imperative for the state to protect society from them. I don't know if that situation is what's really going on, there isn't enough info. The point is it's not necessarily a case of Disney-villain ICE agents pulling wings off of flies for giggles (which is how a lot of commenters are treating it).
>How would you like to pay for it out of your own pocket then?
I do, it's called taxes, and I'm fine with that.
It seems to me that you can run ICE without necessarily having figures like Joe Arpaio or Donald Trump as ideological sponsors while accomplishing the same job.
I've read on a few occasions that immigration was even more strictly enforced under Obama's administration, but it was done without xenophobic rhetoric, which seems ideal.
To anyone who is listening rather than assuming, it seems that the Trump administration has done it without xenophobic rhetoric as well.
No, it isn't. If you took any time to talk to any of the tremendous number of reasonable, empathic people working at ICE, you could not say that with a straight face.
The mandate of ICE is to enforce immigration and customs laws, not to "be cruel to foreigners" or some such. Making a dehumanizing moral caricature of people you disagree with is not helpful to anyone who needs help.
ICE impersonates the LAPD, making their jobs more difficult. The LAPD has requested they stop doing this.
Homeland wants to be separated from ICE because ICE is hurting the broader org’s reputation and making it harder to keep the country safe.
ICE is so far off the rails, it is indefensible.
Please link me to the tremendous number of reasonable, empathic people working at ICE who are speaking out against the injustices committed by their organization. I'll wait.
Which results in ridiculous bullshit like this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-u...
Can you tell me how the above situation is not cruel?
USCIS is not ICE. When USCIS refers people to ICE (the topic of this article), ICE has their own procedures which have more to do with carrying out immigration and customs law than "cruelty".
I lost it at this:
>The Department of Homeland Security’s list of certified schools where international students can enroll includes the University of Farmington.
I don't know the specifics but can someone explain why this is not entrapment?
What next, leave warm blankets near the homeless saying they're free to take and then arrest them for theft?
Also DHS's list of certified schools just lost all its meaning and legitimacy. If MIT is on that list it might as well be a fraudulent university for all we know.
This kind of shenanigans will just further plummet the already lower university enrollment.
I am struggling to find a good analogy here. Like a fake cop that is certified as legit by the police department? Wouldn't that make him a real cop as far as the law is concerned? How is this a fake univ if it's certified as legit by ICE?
because they are charging the recruiters too! Hahaha this is hysterically bad, so because government agents werent the ones getting people to do what they wouldnt have otherwise done
And because deportation isnt a criminal charge
All necessary elements for an entrapment defense
But The recruiters might have a defense and do face criminal charges
but isn't it entrapment of the recruiters?
I don't know, it may be legal but it's not ethical.
If the recruiters were acting on the government agents' instructions, it still counts as entrapment.
Presumably there is a process that needs to be followed by the DHS before a school is certified as legit.
They transferred their valid visas from a legit university to this "phony" university. How can that result in 'no visa' if the university is certified by the govt as eligible to grant visas to international students?
If they were accepted to legit schools and then transferred to this one it seems likely that they weren't seeking education, but a means to stay here, which would be in violation of the visa.
Students knew that the scheme was illegal “and that discretion should be used when discussing the program with others,” prosecutors wrote in their indictment.
This was not a fake university at all. This was a fake fake university.
The former would be offensive. The latter is a brilliant sting operation I 100% endorse.
Also, prosecutors said that this is proof that the student visa program could be abused. That's not clear at all from this case. We know at least one of the fake school's neighbors knew something was wrong. We don't know how likely this was to have been discovered by authorities routinely, or how many applicants reported the fraud. This is going to put extra pressure on the student visa program for no good reason.
> eight people who allegedly worked as “recruiters” for the school and collectively helped at least 600 students to remain in the country under false pretenses now face federal conspiracy charges
If this was a fake university set up by ICE, why are its employees being charged with conspiracy? (The Detroit News article clarifies that the recruiters did not know it was a fake university)
And for that matter, how is this whole thing not crystal-clear entrapment, at least for the "recruiter" employees, if not for the "students" themselves? The Detroit News article, again, quotes a law professor / prosecutor as saying "it's not entrapment":
> “The government can put out the bait, but it’s up to the defendants to fall for it.”
...but isn't "putting out the bait" what entrapment is? (That's a sincere, not rhetorical question, I'm not a lawyer and don't play one on TV)
A sting operation (fake drug buy) is not entrapment. If you walk up to someone and ask them if they want to buy drugs and they do it’s not entrapment. If you threaten them to buy your drugs or pretend you are selling them legal drugs and then hand them something illegal and arrest them, that is entrapment.
Not sure if this is actually true but that's what it says in the article.
As for the "recruiters", I think they mean to say that these were independent people who offered their services and are alleged to have knowingly aided the commission of the unlawful acts (i.e. conspiracy) involved in aiding the misrepresentation of the visa status of those attempting to enroll.
Hiring recruiters for a fake university would seem to fit this definition nicely. ("Independent people who offered their services" is a funny way of describing "people who applied for and accepted jobs".)
I'm also not clear on how, absent specific evidence, it's possible to draw the "which they would not otherwise have committed" line for the students -- did they intend to misrepresent their visa status so applied to this fake university? Or did the recruiter or university encourage the students to apply and therefore misrepresent their visa status?
(That said I'm very prepared to accept that there is evidence to support criminal intent on both the recruiters' and students' part which is just absent from the news articles; it just feels odd to assume it automatically.)
>eight people in eight states who allegedly were students at the school and recruited additional students to enroll
...so not employees as such (presumably the "school" was offering them some financial incentive to do the recruiting work, but if they were students who knew there weren't actual classes etc that makes their intent much clearer.)
I grant myself a failing grade for reading comprehension today ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Reminds me of those stories of police departments sending 'you won the lottery' announcements to local criminals who had to appear to collect their prize in person...whereupon they were promptly arrested.
I find it amusing; I never finished my degree either but I try and be at least up-front about it.
>The federal indictments name eight people in eight states who allegedly worked as recruiters for the school. All have been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harboring aliens for profit. They face a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
So ICE employed recruiters, and is now prosecuting them for doing what they were told? A law enforcement agency hired people, required them to break the law (presumably under threat of dismissal), and then intends to jail them for it?
If a drug dealer hires henchmen to sell their drugs, and under threat of dismissal tells them to move a certain amount of product, the henchmen are still guilty of a crime.
If the kingpin is actually the FBI, everyone working for them is still going to jail.
Keep in mind their employer was in "The Department of Homeland Security’s list of certified schools".
Their work was only illegal because their employer turned out to be "corrupt". And presumably the cover was strong enough that doing your due diligence on your new employer wouldn't raise any red flags.
As an employee is it my responsibility to ensure that my day-to-day work hasn't been made illegal due to my employer's actions!?
Per TFA the recruiters were themselves fake “students” who spread the word about the fake university and prepared fake transcripts for their recruits to fraudulently keep their student visas while not actually taking any coursework.
The narrative you are seeing is not what actually happened. IMO it’s WaPo’s fault as the article is very badly written to portray the student visa holders as victims in this.
Unless outline is skipping part of TFA?
But in that case, "recruiter" is an incredibly poor choice of word by the author.
The eight recruiters allegedly helped create fraudulent records, including transcripts, that students could give to immigration authorities.
Weird, they must have edited it
The article looks to have made it sound like ICE employed them, but I don't believe that is the case. It seems more likely they (the recruiters) were acting independently getting international students to transfer to the fake school knowing it wasn't a legit school (hence the "pay to stay" statement) and helping them with that process while unaware it was actually setup by ICE.
If people applying for student visas for fake universities is a real problem, why not just compare their applications with a list of real universities?
Especially putting the fake uni on DHS’s list of certified schools. Is there a problem of fake unis getting on DHS's list? Otherwise the crime they committed (applying for a visa for a fake university certified by the DHS) would have been literally impossible if DHS/ICE didn't intentionally certify a fake uni.
Setting up a "honeypot" is not entrapment.
That's not to say that this was anything other than a waste of time and resources, and a textbook example of what happens when a law enforcement agency is unleashed from regulation.
[I'm purposefully avoiding the topic of ICE, ethics, and a number of other things here: just wanted to make one point]