What A Fake ICE University Says About Immigration Enforcement

WAMU 88.5

Published December 3, 2019 at 10:06 AM EST

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seal is seen before a press conference discussing ongoing enforcement efforts to combat human smuggling along the Southwest border of the United States.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) created a fake university in Michigan to attracting immigrants whose student visas were obtained illegally.

This plan led to the arrests of some 250 students who enrolled at the “University of Farmington” in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The students were arrested for violating student visa rules, which state that the students must be enrolled at a federally accredited institution while completing their studies.

The supposed university does not have any teachers, curriculum, classes or extracurriculars, despite advertising a STEM program.

The students, however, say they’re the victims of entrapment. Attorneys for those arrested claim that ICE designed the university to purposely trick those overseas into paying thousands of dollars to an institution they have no way of truly knowing is fraudulent.

Journalists and lawmakers are asking many questions in the wake of the story breaking. Where did this money go? What will happen to these students? How common is this practice? Is this how we want Homeland Security to handle immigration?

Produced by Stacia Brown.

GUESTS

Niraj Warikoo, Immigration and religion reporter at The Detroit Free Press; @nwarikoo

Theresa Cardinal Brown, Director of Immigration & Cross-Border Policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center; former official with the Department of Homeland Security in both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations; @BPCTBrown

Senem Bakar, Director of International Student and Scholar Services at American University; @bakarsenem

For more, visit https://the1a.org.