Doesn’t this all sound a bit like ABSCAM? DHS sets up a phone University, hires recruiters to get foreign students already here in the US on student visas to transfer to the fake DHS Uni and then tell the students how they can get jobs here in the US.
So if the recruiters were trained by uncover DHS officers then can they really be held accountable for the helping the students get jobs? Unless the undercover DHS agents told the recruiters that this was illegal how would the recruiters know? Immigration laws and procedures are complicated and arcane.
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Well in the age of #metoo I would think that undercover DHS agents could reasonably expect that they could be charged for harassment if they run it like Trump Models was run.
From the article it sounds like they weren’t even undocument, but simply needed to be enrolled with a school to keep their student visas.
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The University of Farmington. Implement your future today whilst planting seeds for tomorrow, reaping the fruit in the looming future and overcoming the harrowing past.
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Ignorance of the law is only a defense for billionaires and right-wing politicians.
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—Protects ingroups, but does not bind them; binds outgroups, but does not protect them.—
Also this OT.
Nope, no binding here. Tax and bank fraud, just like Michael Cohen testified.
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Why stop there? Fake health clinics, fake law offices, fake churches, fake day care centers … there are lots of ways you can target the most vulnerable. Since that’s the goal, ain’t it?
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Got mixed feelings here, because if you “enroll” in a university that doesn’t register you for any classes, you have to know something is up. Of course, once your tuition is paid you’re not getting it back and thus you might not have any cash left to switch to a legit university. Need more detail on the duration of the students’ enrollments with the fake university. If you’re paying for a second semester of no classes, you have to know something’s bullshit.
Also, let me know when DHS runs a sting on E-1 visas.
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This is heartbreaking. I’d love to come up with a witty retort to this story but my feelings interfere, and they’re telling me America is dying.
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ICE needs to be abolished
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How can this be legal? Isn’t it double entrapment? I’m not legal scholar, so I’d love input.
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Some points from the Detroit Free Press article:
Students who were here legally enrolled in the DHS fake Uni because the Uni that they had been attending lost accrediation.
Students who transferred out of the fake DHS because there were no classes also got deported.
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.
Yeah there is something rotten in Denmark if an accreditation agency said they were legit, but knew they weren’t. We need the name of the accreditation agency because now their reputation is toast.
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. Some CPT programs have classes combined with work programs at companies.
Bastards
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There’s only the defense attorney’s one-sentence assertion about this. Hopefully more detail will emerge, such as what universities they transferred to and how long it took them to ditch Farmington.
From the DFP article, tuition was paid quarterly. However I will note that $2500 a quarter seems very low, so transferring out would likely result in a financial hit that would be unsustainable for some.
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It sounds as if they were really depending on these folks not having good representation and the operation not coming to light.
So here’s a question for the lawyers: since this “enterprise” used federal resources to make it appear that it was legitimate, and arguably defrauded its customers while causing them enormous and irreparable harm (not just the loss of money and the loss of educational opportunity, but the loss of legal immigration status and the future earnings that came with it), would there be enormous liability if sovereign immunity couldn’t be used to sweep the whole thing under a rug?
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That is some scything parody
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Because online classes aren’t a thing…
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Didn’t we used to have rules against law enforcement engaging in entrapment? Or are those rules something else Republicans have tossed on the ash heap of decency?
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This is how Trump makes America great again.
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More and more there’s the silent understanding that those rules only apply to citizens.
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And only if those citizens haven’t caused the ruling party any annoyance.
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