ICE arrests 90 more students at fake university in Michigan | Hacker News Reader

ICE arrests 90 more students at fake university in Michigan

eu.freep.com

48 points31707017 comments

I'm genuinely puzzled as to what crime these students had supposedly committed. ICE had not told these students that the university was fake. They marketed it as a legitimate and accredited university, and even got other governmental agencies to vouch for this fake university:

> 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.

It sounds like most of the students were specifically looking to enroll in an accredited university, so that they can be in compliance with the law. And they would have succeeded in that as well, if not for ICE deceiving them into thinking that the university was accredited, when it actually wasn't. How is this not entrapment?

"entrapment is a practice whereby a law enforcement agent or agent of the state induces a person to commit a criminal offense that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit"

I don't buy it, but the article includes a quote that appears to attempt to address your concern:

> "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."

Their argument is that, because no student ever attended class, all of the students were knowingly attempting to commit fraud. That claim seems suspect, considering that there were no classes for the students to attend.

I suppose you could argue that, if a student found out that there were no classes and did not attempt to report the university or un-enroll, that they were complicit in the fraud, but still, what the hell?

> 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.

If they detained people for never showing up for class, 2/3rds of my 1st year engineering class would've been arrested.

> I'm genuinely puzzled as to what crime these students had supposedly committed.

It looks like visa fraud. The idea is that they signed up for a transparently false university (that claimed to be real, but obviously wasn't) in order to stay in the country when they otherwise were not legally entitled to.

Not sure how well this will hold up in court. We'll see.

Except it wasn't "transparently false", it was made to look as real as a government accredited university can on purpose.

This makes no sense. The main issue here is recruiters in India and the USA promoting these types of universities to students there. These people should be caught. People seeking a better life apply, pay the tuition and show up. Now if they know it is fake is another issue. If you place a million dollars on the sidewalk and someone takes it and never reports it and you arrest them, is it fair. You are basically testing the persons ethics, which is not a criminal offence.

While some feel it may border on entrapment in this case, a failed 'test of ethics' generally is illegal. If you do unethical things because the threat of getting caught is all that matters, you are not a good person by any standard.

Ethics cuts both ways: if you are too lazy to find real illegal acts and contrive one as part of your job because it is more convenient and profitable, then you are not a good person by any standard and are certainly in no position to judge others.

> 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.

Given that for recruiters "knowing the universities" is their job, I would at least be willing to have a separate argument about whether or not this strategy is a valid one to weed out malicious recruiters. Even in that debate though, I'd argue "confirm that it's officially government certified" is about as high a bar as you can set for a recruiter to cover their ass. If a certified university is still bogus, then the problem lies with the agency that certified it.

For the students, it's entrapment and the people involved with it should be the ones who's careers are ended, once and for all, not the students.

And "by the way" that entrapment is what I would consider the "main issue" here.

I'm curious as to how much money this entrapment program cost compared to the cost of extending visas/offering citizenship.

Apparently, this program made money. Students paid a million dollars in tuition that they aren't getting back.

Which we can all be sure will be used for the benefit of the union! cough Iran-contra cough

How is this allowed to happen? I don’t understand what the students did wrong

The people who set up this 'college' should each spend a day in jail for every day any of the 'students' spent in jail.

“fake university in metro Detroit created by the Department of Homeland Security”

Reminds me of the movie Accepted from 2006. Justin Long, the guy from all the older Apple commercials played in it.

I thought this statement was a bit untrue though:

"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."

There are online universities that are accredited as far as I know, but most of them are for-profit schools and heard some of their credits aren't transferable. Chances are if you watch television, you've seen commercials for some of them. Some of them will accept almost anyone though, no test scores just to get your student aid funding, such as your pell grant. I know also some were reported to aggressive target Veterans for their GI bill money. Not sure if people see these schools are legit, but probably teaching similar brick and mortar curriculum.

Some of these schools also have brick and mortar campuses, offering fully online programs and some programs are a mix of online and in-classroom, for example, nursing schools. So some online schools for sure are doing shady things, but I wouldn't discredit a school only because it's online. However you should really do your research and look into the accreditation, job stats but even then those are useless as you could go to college for engineering but if you got a job after flipping burgers you count as getting a job even if not in your field, reviews, etc. Being able to not transfer credits would also be a turn off if other schools aren't willing to accept.

I think online schools should be a option and hope they improve over time and flexible. Maybe you are a stay at home mom, so while you aren't helping your children you can be working on your degree. Maybe you got a degree already, and wanted to advance in your company. So you decide to go back to school and get your MBA so your organization will value you more, then in your spare time and weekends you could be earning your MBA. I was interviewing with a company that made software for set top boxes, she seen my Github and said she really liked me, and thought I had a lot of fire in me but said couldn't move any further because not having college. Plus I had a vision to reinvent TV, I shared about on blogs/social media. This was 2012, but a lot of those same ideas such as the Cloud DVR are incorporated into real products now. So some companies don't care about your skills 100%. Looked up the company, looks like last year they went bankrupt. Seems like they were mostly just contracting for cable companies.

However, if you are a foreign student from India, I don't see why you'd need to come to the US when you can do the same programs online.

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