Saturday, November 05, 2011
300 Tri-Valley students may be sent home
From The Hindu
Up to 300 students, a majority of them Indian, are likely to be sent home after United States immigration authorities spent more than nine months investigating the Tri-Valley University (TVU) visa fraud case.
Following a meeting held on Friday between Indian officials and their U.S. counterparts at the Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Indian Embassy said that more than a thousand students were being considered for transfer to other universities.
Of these 435 transfers have already been approved, 145 have been denied and “about an equal number” were issued with Notices of Intention to Deny. NOIDs had been issued to the students based on a preliminary examination of the documentation and other circumstances pertaining to the individual students’ cases, sources told The Hindu.
The idea of issuing a NOID was to give students some time to respond as required. U.S. officials have advised that students who have received NOIDs should “reply to the notices in the stipulated time with required and additional information or documents.”
This would put the total number of students likely to be told that they had to leave the U.S. in the vicinity of 300. The remaining transfer application cases, another 300 or more in number, were said to still be under examination.
In terms of the progress of the investigation since then, U.S. officials said that the cases of students that have been examined were considered individually “after evaluating all the information provided by the students.” However no timeframe has been provided for wrapping all the cases, although 600-odd cases were said to have been covered in the last six months.
Sources said that students who were denied visa and returned to India would not face any restrictions against reapplying for another student, or I-20, visa, adding that in the case of those who re-applied their application would be considered afresh without prejudice to their earlier denial of transfer visa from TVU.
However it is not yet clear whether any formal or written assurances to this effect will be given to the students. This may be a concern because there are some legal circumstances under which students returning to India and reapplying for an I-visa may face a risk of denial based on their past association with the TVU case. The Notice to Appear is a case in point.
“Once you leave [the U.S.] after an Notice to Appear is issued, you are automatically considered to be self-deported. After self-deportation you are subject to a minimum five-year ban from re-entering the U.S,” as immigration specialist Attorney Sheela Murthy said at the time to The Hindu. While an NTA is different from a NOID, a written assurance to students may assuage concerns regarding possible debarment from re-entry under a NOID too.
Sources also noted that the process with regard to NOIDs would be that after receipt of the notice the student in question would be required to respond to notice, following which they would get a further intimation as to whether their case has been considered or denied. If denied, the source said, students would have recourse within the framework of U.S. law, possibly entailing the pursuit of justice in a court of law.
The case of TVU near the San Francisco area in California came to light in January this year when a sting operation led by ICE closed in on a major visa fraud network run by Susan Xiao-Ping Su (41), then the head of the University.
At the time ICE issued a notice of forfeiture of properties of Su. However with over 95 per cent of the students involved said to be of Indian origin, and a majority from Andhra Pradesh, it was evident that many hundreds of them might be left in legal limbo, facing the prospect of being “removed” and, before that, the humiliation of wearing a radio tag for monitoring.
In May, Su was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of visa fraud and money laundering.
After last week’s meeting sources also said most of the earlier cases of radio tags had already been cleared and the last six months had seen no new instances of radio tagging. So it was quite likely that there are very few tags on students at this time, if any.
Reflecting on the room for discretion available to U.S. immigration authorities in adjudicating on individual cases, the Indian embassy said that at the meeting on Friday it had sought to impress upon U.S. officials that “the Indian students of TVU have undergone hardship since the closure of the University and that their cases should be viewed with understanding.” In a statement the embassy added that it was continuing its efforts with U.S. authorities aimed at addressing the plight of TVU students.
Labels: radio tagging, Tri-Valley University, visa fraud
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
U.S. authorities promise “good judgement and commonsense”
From The Hindu
United States officials handling the cases of Indian students caught up in the alleged immigration fraud by Tri-Valley University in the San Francisco area promised Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Meera Shankar, that they would exercise “good judgement and commonsense,” in handling the case, according to sources.
Since the case against TVU and its head, Susan Xiao-Ping Su, became evident last week, the fate of hundreds of students, many from Andhra Pradesh, hung in limbo with “a small proportion of them” facing deportation or criminal proceedings, according to official statements here.
Officials in India and representatives of the students had also expressed dismay when it became clear over the weekend that ICE intended to use ankle-attached radio tags to monitor the movements of some of the students involved.
Official sources confirmed that some students were in “detention” over the use of the radio tags, even as State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in response to a question from The Hindu, “[The use of] ankle monitors... is widespread across the U.S. and standard procedure for a variety of investigations. It does not necessarily imply guilt or suspicion of criminal activity.”
However Ms. Shankar was said to have received assurances from the Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, that his team would “handle the case with good judgement and commonsense.”
Further, ICE officials conveyed to the Indian embassy their assessment that while fraud was involved in the case of some students, there were definitely other cases where the students were “victims.”
Sources here also made clear that the Indian embassy had been intensively involved in back-channel discussions surrounding the TVU case. “Our position is that students should not be victimised and should be given the option to either transfer to another university or visa or return to India and reapply for a visa,” officials said.
In touch with affected students
The embassy also confirmed that the consulate in San Francisco had been in contact with ICE officials there and Indian consular officials had consulted with three groups of affected TVU students, both in San Francisco and in Washington, respectively.
Further, embassy officials said that three dedicated email accounts had been set up as a virtual hotline for those seeking advice on this case, and these were accessible through the embassy’s website.
Mr. Crowley indicated that ICE had also set up a helpline for Indian students affected, adding that the State Department was “in regular communication with officials of the Government of India. [The] Department of Homeland Security and ICE are leading this investigation.”
Touching upon some of the details of the case, official sources said that TVU head Ms. Su had allegedly offered some of the students a “profit-sharing scheme” that entailed a fee-waiver in exchange for referrals that led to further student recruitment.
Under this scheme TVU also offered the “grandfather” student even more benefits when one student that he referred in turn made another successful referral.
Labels: ankle monitors, radio-tagging, study abroad, Tri-Valley University, visa fraud
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