Students at Fake University Say They Were Collateral Damage in Sting Operation

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/nyregion/students-at-fake-university-say-they-were-collateral-damage-in-sting-operation.html

by danso • 10 years ago

98 108 10 years ago

nytimes.com

danso3• 10 years ago

FWIW, a Chronicle article that focuses on how the Feds maintained their fake web presence: http://chronicle.com/article/Inside-the-Elaborate-Web/235982

The Internet Archive has a copy of the now defunct unnj.edu: https://web.archive.org/web/20160327093120/http://www.unnj.e...

adrianN• 10 years ago

I just browsed the website archive for a couple of minutes. I wouldn't have noticed that this wasn't a legitimate university.

simonbarker87• 10 years ago

Given that you need to meet these eligibility criteria to even register a .edu domain name I think this shows a pretty concerted effort to make this look like a legitimate institution and dupe the students in the first place.

http://net.educause.edu/edudomain/eligibility.asp

baby5• 10 years ago

The only way to get a job here for some people is to get a student Visa. This sting is just morbid. All of that to arrest a thousand workers. Wrong priorities?

maxerickson5• 10 years ago

I'm pretty okay with enforcement action against this sort of fraud. What about people that actually want to come here to study?

I'd also be okay with radically simplifying and opening the Visa system, but I don't want the existing concessions to go to people that are intending to abuse them.

baby5• 10 years ago

What about people that actually want to come here to study?

There are no quota on student visas

that are intending to abuse them

I wouldn't call that an abuse. Rather, the only solution for many people if they don't want to stay/work illegally.

duaneb4• 10 years ago

The only way to get a job here for some people is to get a student Visa.

Not everyone can get a job here. Using a student visa to get a job is screwing over an actual student somewhere else.

burkaman• 10 years ago

There's no student visa quota, so they're not screwing over any students. They're screwing over an actual legal worker, I guess, assuming someone else would have taken their job.

sageabilly• 10 years ago

From the article:

Ultimately, the students said that because the Department of Homeland Security’s website certified the University of Northern New Jersey, they believed the institution was legitimate. In addition, the website of the New Jersey Education Department listed it as approved. So did the website of the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges, a national body.

It's easy to think "Oh, those students knew they were being duped, they knew what they were getting into"- but if you're coming from another country with a completely different way of doing things, and this university which appears to be accredited AND have the blessing of the US Government pops up going "Apply here and we'll give you a visa, you don't have to go to class and we promise it's above-board"... I don't think that's going to immediately register as a scam. Odd, maybe, but then you see they're accredited and you think "well if it was a scam they wouldn't have accreditation."

dsp1234• 10 years ago

The flip side of this is:

“All purported students are recorded at some point or another fully going along with the pay-to-stay scheme.”

There are both audio and video recordings from the president’s office in New Jersey, when students called or visited, Mr. Phillips said. He personally witnessed some of these exchanges, and heard students admit they knew the university would not have classes.

If that's true, then it's going to be hard to convince a judge that the student thought it wasn't a scam. Clear evidence of the student agreeing to attend the university even though it would never host a class is hard to refute.

bovermyer• 10 years ago

But if this "university" was a government-run thing, isn't that entrapment?

aplusbi• 10 years ago

If I were in their shoes, I would find the university very suspect, and possibly unethical. But if I saw that they were an accredited university and certified by DHS, I'd assume that they were exploiting a legal loophole.

fucking_tragedy• 10 years ago

This is a claim by the prosecution and doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of the situation.

mmanfrin• 10 years ago

  According to some students, brokers assured them that they could 
  immediately earn credit hours for their work experience in a program 
  called Curricular Practical Training, without taking classes

'Work Experience', 'Internships', this sort of work-for-credit system exists on every major college campus in the US. Is it inconceivable that you can see people talking about such things and consider not going explicitly to a class as still being above board?

aclimatt• 10 years ago

Absolutely. It was downright sinister of the DHS to implicate the students in this when they themselves legitimized the school in no less than three different places. To quote the article, "if you can't trust the government, who can you trust?"

I understand what the government says by "you have to know the law", but it's idiocy to expect everyone to be a lawyer, and instead we all use our best judgement.

Maybe the signs were clear that UNNJ were fake, maybe they weren't, but fraud implies a knowing and willful attempt to break the law, and almost all of these cases seem far from it. It's shameful to make most of these students appear in immigration court.

danso3• 10 years ago

Yeah, it's hard to think of an analogous scheme. It'd be as if in "To Catch a Predator", the state legislature's website was altered temporarily to lower the age of consent.

x5n1• 10 years ago

Some of these students need to sue the government over this. But I doubt they will have the resources or the standing to do so. At the end of the day who wins from doing this? The US government? No. The students. No. America? No. No one wins. It's just big bureaucracy justifying its budget and its existence.

US has 300 million people. 1,000 students make little difference. Whether legal or not.

slededit2• 10 years ago

It looked legitimate except for the part where you didn't have to go any classes or learn anything. You don't have to be a lawyer to understand that goes against the spirit of the law - and if your intent is to walk that line not getting a lawyer is irresponsible.

Zzzz11• 10 years ago

Not sure it's just me or if I have misread this, but the article says the university claimed it has classes before DHS announced it was fake and provides no classes at all. Quote: "...and Twitter messages about classes canceled because of bad weather". In that sense, even though it is doubtable on whether this sting operation is an entrapment for students in a legal term, it is an "entrapment" for the students in the fact. Presumably, We can see that before government shut down the university, students were only been told "you don't HAVE TO go to class" for some period of time when they were in CPT (or internship), but NOT been told the university NEVER had and won't going to have any classes. Being in the lie that the university may hold class somewhere, or in the future, and it was relatively new and totally legitimate, students could buy it and participate into this later known "scheme".

cortesoft• 10 years ago

If it was so obvious that it wasn't legitimate, then how come the NJED was fooled?

danso3• 10 years ago

They may have been part of the scheme, such as when the 5-star hotel agrees to host cops running a prostitution sting.

ianhawes• 10 years ago

From the article:

So did the website of the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges, a national body. Its director, Michale S. McComis, later said he had certified the university in order to cooperate with the government’s investigation.

outworlder• 10 years ago

According to some students, brokers assured them that they could immediately earn credit hours for their work experience in a program called Curricular Practical Training, without taking classes.

Now, this crosses the line, IMHO. You see, getting credit for work experiences at universities is not unheard of, where I come from. At least for undergraduate level.

It is very easy to convince someone that it's the same deal.

Most of the students were from China and India, where working with brokers is a familiar way of doing business. But in retrospect, they seem to have ignored what should have been red flags, whether because they were overly trusting, willfully ignorant or willing participants in visa fraud.

Well, isn't this the definition of scam?

It is likely that some of them caught on and decided to go through anyway. But I'd guess that a higher percentage were just preyed on on their naiveté.

baby5• 10 years ago

whether because they were overly trusting, willfully ignorant or willing participants in visa fraud

or just frustrated with that shitty visa system.

pessimizer2• 10 years ago

Out of all of the schools in the United States, they paid a premium to go to one that didn't have any classes. Whether or not they knew that wasn't the intent of a student visa, I 1) believe they should have known, and 2) believe at the least that they've made it clear that they aren't interested in studying in the US. They can find a equivalent curriculum which offers no classes and no instruction anywhere in the world; I offer one for free.

emerongi• 10 years ago

This sounds like entrapment.

I don't know US laws at all, but I thought the "leave the car doors open and wait for someone to steal it" method of catching bad guys was against the law?

maxerickson5• 10 years ago

Using your example, it would cross the line in the US if you then offered someone money to steal the car.

So in this case they probably would have to have been offering the illegal jobs too, not just the fraudulent Visa status.

techonup• 10 years ago

Doesn't quite work like that. See here [1] for a easy-to-understand explanation.

[1] http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633

msellout• 10 years ago

No, seems like it's not entrapment [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_car

wnoise• 10 years ago

Providing opportunities isn't entrapment. Pressuring or convincing someone to commit a crime they wouldn't is. I admit it can be a fine line at times...

ejk314• 10 years ago

There are only two conditions for entrapment - government inducement of the crime, and the defendant's lack of predisposition to engage in the criminal conduct. [1] And I think this qualifies on both counts. The students were looking to get into the US, but the government pushed this visa mill on them indirectly, via the brokers (who wouldn't have had a dual-accredited fake university to pitch without the government's aid). Had these brokers not reached out to these students, it's unlikely that they would have sought out the same illegal method to enter the country. (This is assuming the brokers reached out the students, and not the other way round).

[1] https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-645-en...

masterzora2• 10 years ago

The brokers reaching out to the students doesn't mean entrapment, even if we took the case where the brokers actually were government agents. To be entrapment, someone working on the government's behalf would have to do something that would even convince a lawful-minded person to commit the crime.

dragonwriter2• 10 years ago

There are only two conditions for entrapment - government inducement of the crime, and the defendant's lack of predisposition to engage in the criminal conduct. And I think this qualifies on both counts.

Since the students are not charged with a crime, I'm not sure how either prong of the entrapment test could be met. There's literally no crime at issue in the students cases, which are non-criminal immigration cases.

the government pushed this visa mill on them indirectly, via the brokers

The brokers are the only ones charged with crimes, though.

Had these brokers not reached out to these students, it's unlikely that they would have sought out the same illegal method to enter the country.

Which, insofar as its true, may be a good argument against a lifetime ban (which is a possible penalty in the students' cases, so not completely irrelevant), but not so much against revoking the visas.

tikhonj• 10 years ago

No. In the US, entrapment has a higher bar than that. A sting operation like a bait car is permissible.

Entrapment means that law enforcement did something that would cause a normally law-abiding person to commit the crime. Just leaving a car unlocked is not enough; I'm not sure exactly where the line is drawn, but it would need something additional like a police officer convincing you to do it.

jandrese• 10 years ago

I think the bait car is only entrapment if you have a disguised cop trying to convince people to steal it.

"Oh, I need to move this car to my garage but I'm too busy. I'll give you $20 if you drive it to this address. Sorry I lost the key, just touch the two dangling wires together to start it..."

ma2rten• 10 years ago

Is entrapment even a valid defense in immigration court? Defendants in immigration court don't have the same rights as criminal defendants (e.g. they don't have the right to a lawyer).

caethan• 10 years ago

Except that as far as the article describes, the students aren't being charged with a crime, the brokers are (and are pretty unambiguously guilty of it). The students are just losing their visas.

6stringmerc3• 10 years ago

Wait, hold on - let me break this down a little more simplistically:

Communities of foreign-born peoples, possibly already living in the US (undocumented / falsified records) exist. There are "brokers" who cater to these communities, engaging in a fraudulent enterprise of getting Student Visas for these foreign nationals, usually under the umbrella of a made-up university. With this made-up university, these people can claim to be students yet spend their time working - for whom, over or under the table, I'm not clear from the article.

What is quite clear:

Most of the students were from China and India, where working with brokers is a familiar way of doing business.

This model of using brokers is not to be envied, and if 25 (or more) "students" were led into submitting their documentation in order to commit fraud in the US...well, I've got no sympathy. Make a point. In the US, the concept of "brokers" often includes licenses and duties to perform in earnest (insurance, securities, health plans, etc), not assisting with committing fraud.

I understand the strong desire to come to the US, legally or illegally, and stay however possible. That's what's being preyed upon as well. There are certain cultural practices in the US though, while not perfect, I still think have meaning and importance.

This article does a good job putting humanity to those affected, but seems, um, a bit tone-deaf as to the bigger picture...in that to find people willing to commit fraud, the setup had to be 'believable' enough. Methinks it was. Caveat Emptor.

dreamdu5t6• 10 years ago

Bigger picture? The bigger picture is Americans think going to school and working should be illegal for anyone else but themselves, and that it's okay to hurt young students trying to get ahead in the name of protecting their xenophobic and hypocritical immigration laws. Your presidential candidate's biggest idea is a fucking giant wall to keep the mexicans you love to employ out.

What a joke. If you think there's any sense to stings like this you're deluded.

anoonmoose• 10 years ago

These students were not going to school. They knew they wouldn't be taking classes. Are you arguing this wasn't a scam?

67726e3• 10 years ago

People commuting fraud? Yeah, real fucking hard working. My grandparents came here, legally, worked their ass off to provide and integrated. If you don't want to play fair, too fucking bad. We don't owe you shit. We never have, and never will.

And why bring Trump into this? I'd prefer it that my blue collar father didn't get out-competed by illegal immigrants. Unfortunately cheap, unscrupulous businessman often don't care. Nor do the illegals who purchase stolen credentials.

6stringmerc3• 10 years ago

Oh really? I went to graduate school alongside 20+ Tawainese, South Korean, and other SE Asian nationals who did things right, who were attending classes, and who are the ones who would be hurt by this scam. Honest people pay the price.

If you think for a hot minute that a student "going to a University" and not going to classes but instead "working full-time" isn't an abuse of the Student Visa system, then I'm not the deluded one. It's you, projecting xenophobia on top of plain as day crime and punishment.

Take your whole garbage assertion that the US should change its culture to better match bribery and graft as the only indicators of accomplishment and use it somewhere else. I'm not buying it. Not a bit.

csours2• 10 years ago

Caveat Emptor indeed, but 3 separate official sites listed the college as being legitimate.

6stringmerc3• 10 years ago

Which appeals to the greed of thos applying. After all, what good is a No-show degree if it's not accredited? By nature accredited institutions shouldn't be engaged in the activity that was requested (credit for not showing up).

homero• 10 years ago

That's messed up

dreamdu5t6• 10 years ago

Duping and hurting innocent people who want to study or work in the US so they can collect their paycheck and pat themselves on the back for, what? Nothing. The brokers only exist because of the US's absurd anti-immigration policies! When I studied in America, ALL the foreigners including myself worked illegally to earn money to pay for school. Meanwhile, the American students were rude, lazy, and constantly complained about having to go to class 30 hours a week. Try having to wash dishes for $3/hr on top of that under the threat of deportation! America's rhetoric about "free markets" is completely bullshit. They're a heartless nation when it comes to education and healthcare.

ksou32• 10 years ago

You can go somewhere else.

I'm liberal as can be , but you can't agree to the rules of a student visa and then say their so unfair.

tdeck• 10 years ago

I agree that the money should probably be refunded, but can you really say someone "wants to study" when they enroll in a university they know will hold no classes?

mindcrime• 10 years ago

“Typically in any fraud investigation, it is our policy that we do not refund any money,” Mr. Phillips, the Homeland Security spokesman, said.

Sounds like the ones committing fraud here were the US government. But, would you really expect anything different?

daodedickinson• 10 years ago

Eh, it was clear to all involved that this was a fake university with no real classes, even if it appeared that the university had fooled the DHS.

devy2• 10 years ago

From the related coverages linked on the bottom of this article, there is this surprising info.

      The official confirmed that one person did enlist, and that only one person was employed by Facebook, one person by Apple, two at Morgan Stanley and several at other prominent financial institutions.

I wonder if these company HRs were actually doing any background checks at all? They certainly do ask for a lot of forms to fill out...

huac3• 10 years ago

They graduated first from other schools, then got these jobs. When the students lost the H1-B lottery, they then enrolled in the UNNJ. There's probably questions for HR to ask ('you lost the H1-B lottery, how are you still here?') but it's not related to applying to these schools with a fake university on the transcript (again, one that had multiple accreditations).

geodel• 10 years ago

I have known many people of similar background quite closely and also talked to recruiters who help them get jobs. One thing I have invariably noticed none of them was tricked into shady visa related things. They absolutely wanted shortcuts legal or not.

There are many more universities still working on same model. They are legal in very strict and narrow sense but intention is to have students who just want visa to land in US. This model proliferated during stricter H1 scrutiny as student visa proved another way to enter US and work.

mikevp2• 10 years ago

Here's how it worked:

www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/winston-university/n9203

rm_-rf_slash• 10 years ago

I think we can all agree that DHS was in the wrong for having a sting university accredited, but I think it's fair to say that if a foreign national is too thick to see the scam in being enrolled in a university that doesn't make them take classss to get a student visa, then we don't need them, and if they are so unscrupulous to see the scam for what it is and they break the law regardless, then we don't want them.

devy2• 10 years ago

Astonishing excerpt:

      The official confirmed that one person did enlist, and that only one person 
      was employed by Facebook, one person by Apple, two at Morgan Stanley and 
      several at other prominent financial institutions.

I wonder if these company HRs were actually doing any background checks at all? They certainly do ask for a lot of forms to fill out...

presidentender• 10 years ago

I had a background check once. They asked for my dates of attendance at my alma mater, which I provided. Then they called for clarification, because the dates they got from the university didn't match - I took 4 years to do a 4 year degree, graduating in 2009, but somehow the information they got suggested that I started in August 2007 and "left" in October 2008 - although they did agree that I had a degree.

I tried to explain to them that the dates they had managed to get from the university were for a job I had on campus, and that I hadn't done a bachelor's in a year. "Yes, sir, but if I can just confirm that you were there August 2007 through October 2008, then this will clear things up." So I did the expedient thing.

calebegg• 10 years ago

I had an incredibly similar experience. My employer's third party background check company was able to confirm my degree, but claimed I'd gotten it in a year, and so my entire school section was listed on the report as (large, red): "UNCONFIRMED" (they never contacted me). I was somewhat worried, since there's some strong language about how if this background check doesn't go well the offer is voided or something, but my recruiter just laughed and said it happens all the time.

umanwizard2• 10 years ago

These people had degrees from real schools, they just enrolled in the fake school afterward so they could renew their visas.

And yes, companies do background checks. I received a copy of mine, as everyone is legally entitled to do, and it included information such as what school I graduated from.

forgetsusername• 10 years ago

they just enrolled in the fake school afterward so they could renew their visas

So Facebook, who from what I hear around these parts, hires only the best and brightest, wasn't curious about how or why these incredibly smart foreigners were working and attending "UNNJ"?

ikeboy• 10 years ago

mikevp2• 10 years ago

Sounds like the Billy Crystal SNL routine.

coldcode• 10 years ago

Imagine you started a new Department of Internal Security, got a .gov domain, built up a large website with forms to have people apply for some kind of visa, and took money from random people who thought it was a federal agency. Would you be guilty of something?

caf2• 10 years ago

At least the UNNJ t-shirt should be some kind of collector's item.

rubyfan• 10 years ago

Am I the ink one who wants one of those UNNJ t-shirt?

coldtea• 10 years ago

Twenty-five students were listed as anonymous co-conspirators, but officials say all of them knew they were committing fraud by not going to class.

In my country there's no obligation whatsoever to go to class.

You can skip as long as you like (except some special lab courses) and s long as you are able to pass the final exams, you are OK.

And even if you don't show up for the exams, you can try again next year (kids working while studying often take like 10 years to complete a 3 year course, but you could still be considered a student after 15 or 20 years, as long as you registered every year -- of course some privileges, like student discounts and being able to live in the dorm etc were not available to you anymore after the 4th year or so).

ezoe• 10 years ago

Sting Operation is illegal in Japan. A proof of crime acquired in an illegal way is not proof in japan.

I don't want to set foot on American soil because I cannot trust the law of USA.

naakkupoochi• 10 years ago

If I was told that all I needed to pay was $4500, and don't have to attend classes, for a course that the every student in other universities attend classes for, would I not have second thoughts about the university ? Every student who joined UNNJ knew it was a scam, and they were an accomplice

Students at Fake University Say They Were Collateral Damage in Sting Operation

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