The students at the fake University

[Randy W]

in the NY Times

 

The University of Northern New Jersey was a fake university, created by the United States Department of Homeland Security in order to investigate student visa fraud. Wikipedia

 

New Jersey University Was Fake, but Visa Fraud Arrests Are Real

 

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

 

 

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/05/03/nyregion/03students-web2/03students-web2-master675.jpg

 

K., a 30-year-old from China, and his girlfriend, S., are waiting for hearing dates in the case. K. said he had suspicions about the university, but like others relied on its accreditations. “If the government is not trustworthy, who should we trust?” he said. CreditJacob Hannah for The New York Times

 

 

A number of the students failed to get an H-1B and seemed out of options — with jobs at Facebook, Google and Morgan Stanley on the line. Others were seeking to transfer from colleges they heard were under investigation to stay one step ahead of immigration officials.

That is when the University of Northern New Jersey beckoned.

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.

“It is very much like a honey trap because you have a very, very great temptation being waved in front of these young men and women,” . . .

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.

. . . “If you didn’t go to a class for a year, you should expect something is going on.”

 

[Greg.D.]

Man, that is harsh! 1000 people turned into criminals, facing a potential lifetime ban from the U.S.

 

Because it's the H1-B system that is broken, rigged to serve a few large staffing companies (foreign-owned) who put foreign workers in U.S. companies.

 

These graduates believed the brokers - okay, they should know such brokers are not on the up and up, maybe they don't know that - and, if they checked the Homeland Security's web site, it says this fake school is a legitimate school. Click this link:

 

https://studyinthestates.dhs.gov/school-search?field_school_name_value=northern+new+jersey&field_location_city_value=&field_location_state_value=39&field_education_level_value=All

 

Did they really need to turn 1000 people into criminals in order to arrest 21 people?

[Allon]

 

“They were 100 percent fully aware,” said Alvin Phillips, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. “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.

 

I don't see it quite that way. I don't think they were collateral damage if they were recorded fully going along with the scheme. I work with H-1B's, a lot of them. Some are very good but others are quite devious and usually they are the ones that are incompetent on the job. And that latter part is the troubling one. At least the illegals that come over do work, albeit under the table. But those who come over under a scheme that exploits loopholes in the law, account for 60% of those who are illegal here. If I knew that the H-1B program was a working model that did not take our jobs and still gave us good talented people, I would feel a lot more comfortable about it.

 

But I don't. I see it every day.

[Greg.D.]

I lose track of the point you are trying to make. I know that widespread dependence on the h-1b worker is a cheap way for larger companies to hire, use and dump talent in a no strings attached way ... a way that discourages rational native-born's from choosing those career paths due to the poor quality of jobs in certain fields.

 

But there are some reasonable uses for an h-1b: like the foreign graduate who starts a company here and needs the visa to stay and work in that company, yet they visas have mostly been snatched up by a few huge staffing companies.

 

Still, rather than making a fake university to entrap foreigners (who shouldn't be working on a student visa anyway), they could have created some fake foreigner's to entrap the shady brokers who were peddling those opportunities. Not all of the fake students went through a broker by the way, some went directly to the fake school, assured by the DHS website that it was a legitimate school, and they assumed they would be taking online courses but couldn't.

 

I am well aware of the propensity of Asians from certain countries to look for the shortcut or illegal path that gets them in the door or at least to the front of the line. Honest ones pay a price for their poor behavior.

[danb]

Here is an example of another way used to circumvent the hard work to actually earning a degree in a US college:

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/industry-helps-chinese-game-their-way-into-and-through-us-colleges/ar-BBtuhmQ?li=BBnbfcN

 

I think these students and companies give a black eye to all the hard working and studying Chinese student in the USA.

[Allon]

I lose track of the point you are trying to make. I know that widespread dependence on the h-1b worker is a cheap way for larger companies to hire, use and dump talent in a no strings attached way ... a way that discourages rational native-born's from choosing those career paths due to the poor quality of jobs in certain fields.

 

But there are some reasonable uses for an h-1b: like the foreign graduate who starts a company here and needs the visa to stay and work in that company, yet they visas have mostly been snatched up by a few huge staffing companies.

 

Still, rather than making a fake university to entrap foreigners (who shouldn't be working on a student visa anyway), they could have created some fake foreigner's to entrap the shady brokers who were peddling those opportunities. Not all of the fake students went through a broker by the way, some went directly to the fake school, assured by the DHS website that it was a legitimate school, and they assumed they would be taking online courses but couldn't.

 

I am well aware of the propensity of Asians from certain countries to look for the shortcut or illegal path that gets them in the door or at least to the front of the line. Honest ones pay a price for their poor behavior.

 

 

A foreign graduate who starts a company here would not work under a H1-B visa. He would work under a number of other visas offered to owners of small and large businesses or even as a foreing worker under a work visa, that is not H1-B..

 

The H1-B program was inteneded to make up for a lack of talent here in the US, but before one can even advertise a H1-B job, they must demonstrate that the job was available for workers in the US first. Usually that advertisemment grossly undervalues the wage so anyone wanting the job here would not accept the pay. I have seen DB2 programmers advertised for $6.25 an hour.

 

And the advertisement for the H1-B is in some glass enclosed board in the back of the room, in small print.

 

Then when they come from overseas, they end up quitting their job since there is so many mergers and acquisitions going on, to where they are not part of that large company anymore. They don't work for Infosys or Tata. They are now on their own with a mortgage. So when there is another acquisition, they are outraged. They now have to find another job to stay in America. Some of them I feel sorry for since they work very hard and are competent. Others (sorry to say most) are truly lazy. They avoid any kind of real decisions.

 

The tragedy is that now universities do not teach the courses needed by American workers to keep up with what is now a burgeoning demand, but not in the main, cogent to the work force, since it has changed. India claims to be the land of the mainframe. Of course, mainframes are considered "old" but unfortunately they are the fastest for large volumes of data. Other software goes passe, such as Powerpoint or Framework. India and China pick that up and suddenly you see it in a lot of the architecture that designers, who are foreign, now use as if it is "new." So foreigners gain that credibility now. The term "guru" is even used by our own businesses to indicate a foreigner who knows a lot, for instance, Excel spreadsheets. Wow. What a talent..

 

They don't know any more than an American worker, who simply cannot compete with them.

[Greg.D.]

A foreign graduate who starts a company here would not work under a H1-B visa. He would work under a number of other visas offered to owners of small and large businesses or even as a foreing worker under a work visa, that is not H1-B..

 

A good and concise article about visa options for startup founders:

7 US startup visa options for international founders

H-1B, O-1, etc. Not really simple.

 

Making The Grades

How one California university faked students’ scores, skated by immigration authorities — and made a fortune in the process.

 

A college on the edge of Silicon Valley has turned itself into an upmarket visa mill, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found, deploying a system of fake grades and enabling thousands of foreign students to enter the United States each year — while generating millions of dollars in tuition revenue for the school and the family who controls it.

Spending millions on foreign recruiters, Northwestern Polytechnic University enrolls 99% of its students — more than 6,000 overall last year — from overseas, with little regard for their qualifications. It has no full-time, permanent faculty, despite having a student body larger than the undergraduate population of Princeton.