Student visa racket spat gets ugly, Delhi issues ‘demarche’ to US govt
Nodal Officer Appointed To Supervise Assistance To Victims, Families
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Washington:03.02.2019
India and the United States stumbled into the most serious spat since the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York in 2013, with New Delhi making known its displeasure over the incarceration of scores of Indians who were ostensibly entrapped by US authorities in a sting operation aimed at uncovering an employment and immigration racket.
From issuing a demarche – a note of protest – to the US government via its embassy in New Delhi to establishing a hotline for the alleged victims in Washington and offering legal counsel, the Indian government initiated a series of measures on Saturday that left no doubt that it felt the purported students have been victimized. The Indian Embassy in Washington DC also appointed a nodal officer to supervise assistance to the victims and their families.
“Embassy of India, Washington and all five Consulates in the US [are] working closely together to help Indian students detained in the US,” the embassy said. More than 100 victims are under arrest – some in home detention and others at immigration processing centers – all over the US and the embassy is still trying to get a complete picture. New Delhi is also insisting that the students, who it says may have been sucked into the scam inadvertently, should be treated differently from the eight recruiters, who are also Indian.
But the US side is questioning the very description of the alleged victims as students, and maintains that they were fully aware that they were enrolling in a fictional university that had no proper campus or classes, and they were using it as a route to work authorization with intent to immigrate.
“Homeland Security Investigations special agents uncovered a nationwide network that grossly exploited US immigration laws. These suspects aided hundreds of foreign nationals to remain in the United States illegally by helping to portray them as students, which they most certainly were not. HSI remains vigilant to ensure the integrity of US immigration laws and will continue to investigate this and other transnational crimes,” Special Agent in Charge Steve Francis, who investigated the case, said.
Aside from the human aspects of the imbroglio, the situation is complicated by politics and hypernationalism on both sides with plenty of grandstanding and posturing.
The Indian side sees no wrong on part of the purported students, who are mostly from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, in an election season where politicians from the two southern states have already jumped on the issue to pressure New Delhi to act on behalf of the victims. On the US side too, the Trump administration is keen to show that it is tough on immigration, even if it means establishing a fake university to entrap students, a tactic see as dodgy by some critics.
On Saturday, officials from the Indian consulate in Houston visited the Prairieland Detention Centre in Alvarado, Texas and the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, Texas to meet the incarcerated students and get their version of the episode. Many other students have been subjected to home detention with tracking devices, even as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of students are panicked over the crackdown.
MEA wants students to be treated differently from those who have duped them
Nodal Officer Appointed To Supervise Assistance To Victims, Families
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Washington:03.02.2019
India and the United States stumbled into the most serious spat since the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York in 2013, with New Delhi making known its displeasure over the incarceration of scores of Indians who were ostensibly entrapped by US authorities in a sting operation aimed at uncovering an employment and immigration racket.
From issuing a demarche – a note of protest – to the US government via its embassy in New Delhi to establishing a hotline for the alleged victims in Washington and offering legal counsel, the Indian government initiated a series of measures on Saturday that left no doubt that it felt the purported students have been victimized. The Indian Embassy in Washington DC also appointed a nodal officer to supervise assistance to the victims and their families.
“Embassy of India, Washington and all five Consulates in the US [are] working closely together to help Indian students detained in the US,” the embassy said. More than 100 victims are under arrest – some in home detention and others at immigration processing centers – all over the US and the embassy is still trying to get a complete picture. New Delhi is also insisting that the students, who it says may have been sucked into the scam inadvertently, should be treated differently from the eight recruiters, who are also Indian.
But the US side is questioning the very description of the alleged victims as students, and maintains that they were fully aware that they were enrolling in a fictional university that had no proper campus or classes, and they were using it as a route to work authorization with intent to immigrate.
“Homeland Security Investigations special agents uncovered a nationwide network that grossly exploited US immigration laws. These suspects aided hundreds of foreign nationals to remain in the United States illegally by helping to portray them as students, which they most certainly were not. HSI remains vigilant to ensure the integrity of US immigration laws and will continue to investigate this and other transnational crimes,” Special Agent in Charge Steve Francis, who investigated the case, said.
Aside from the human aspects of the imbroglio, the situation is complicated by politics and hypernationalism on both sides with plenty of grandstanding and posturing.
The Indian side sees no wrong on part of the purported students, who are mostly from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, in an election season where politicians from the two southern states have already jumped on the issue to pressure New Delhi to act on behalf of the victims. On the US side too, the Trump administration is keen to show that it is tough on immigration, even if it means establishing a fake university to entrap students, a tactic see as dodgy by some critics.
On Saturday, officials from the Indian consulate in Houston visited the Prairieland Detention Centre in Alvarado, Texas and the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, Texas to meet the incarcerated students and get their version of the episode. Many other students have been subjected to home detention with tracking devices, even as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of students are panicked over the crackdown.
MEA wants students to be treated differently from those who have duped them
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