The fake University of Farmington, set up by the Department of Homeland Security, that resulted in the arrest of 250 foreign students this year and prompted outrage from leftists, was a concept embraced by the Obama administration, which engaged in similar operations.
(Article by Hannah Bleau republished from Breitbart.com)
Leftists experienced a collective freakout this week after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the arrest of dozens of foreign nationals committing visa fraud by enrolling in the fake university. It was “part of a sting operation by federal agents who enticed foreign-born students, mostly from India, to attend the school that marketed itself as offering graduate programs in technology and computer studies,” the Detroit Free Press reported.
As Breitbart News detailed:
The Indian workers enrolled in the fake university to get work permits via two federal programs.
The two programs are the Optional Practical Training and the Curricular Practical Training programs.
The two programs keep more than 400,000 foreign graduates in jobs sought by U.S. graduates and it provides billions in revenue for the U.S. investors, as well as the Indian-born hiring managers who traffick them into jobs in many companies throughout the U.S. economy. The OPT program also feeds foreign workers into the H-1B visa program, which allows employers to hire imported workers and then pay them with low wages and a promise of citizenship.
The Indians knew the university was fake because it did not require them to take classes — which is similar to many other colleges around the United States which provide OPT to foreign workers on “Day One” of enrollment.
The news prompted wails from notable leftists. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called the practice “cruel and appalling,” while Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) implied that the operation was an idea birthed by the Trump administration.
“Earlier this year, Congress rushed to approve BILLIONS more $ for ICE + CBP. I saw members voting YES w/o even a summary of the bill,” she wrote.
“Nobody cared then how we’d pay for it. Now ICE is setting up fake universities to trap students,” she claimed. “Yet we were called radical for opposing it”:
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1199838222337167360
“OH MY GOD,” left-wing actress and activist Alyssa Milano wrote upon learning of the arrests:
https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1199729145464414214
https://twitter.com/NeilMunroDC/status/1199852684213399552
However, the practice was not a concept birthed by the Trump administration, despite the implications from the political left and Hollywood elite. Similar operations occurred under the Obama administration at the fake University of Northern New Jersey, established in 2013.
“In many instances, the schools are nothing more than sham visa mills,” New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said of the “Pay to Stay” scheme in 2016, according to the Washington Post.
He continued:
They have no curriculum, no classes, no instructors, and no real students. These purported schools and their corrupt administrators simply give out I-20 [work permit] forms in exchange for payment. This illegal practice is known as ‘pay to stay’ because foreign nationals pay money to brokers and recruiters, like the defendants, to be enrolled in a school for the sole purpose of obtaining immigration status as a student — but with no intention of or interest in going to class or making any progress toward an academic degree.
“Although UNNJ was physically located here in New Jersey, in a real building in Cranford, the university was not a real school,” Fishman explained.
“Its only employees were undercover … agents posing as corrupt administrators. The school had no instructors or educators; it had no curriculum; and no actual classes or educational activities ever occurred there,” he continued.
“‘Pay to Stay’ schemes not only damage our perception of legitimate student and foreign worker visa programs, they also pose a very real threat to national security,” he added, noting that the operation and subsequent arrests “stopped 21 brokers, recruiters and employers across multiple states who recklessly exploited our immigration system for financial gain.”
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