Twenty-one people were arrested by US authorities for their involvement in an alleged scheme to enrol foreign nationals as students in the University of Northern New Jersey, a purported for-profit col
Twenty-one people were arrested by US authorities for their involvement in an alleged scheme to enrol foreign nationals as students in the University of Northern New Jersey, a purported for-profit college located in Cranford, New Jersey (UNNJ).
Unbeknownst to the defendants and the foreign nationals they conspired with, the UNNJ was created in September 2013 by special agents of homeland security investigations (HSI).
“Pay-to-stay schemes not only damage our perception of legitimate student and foreign worker visa programmes, they also pose a very real threat to national security,” Mr Fishman said.
The HIS sting investigation was carried out to unearth the unauthorised networks and educational institutions that are “nothing more than sham visa mills,” he said, adding that these educational institutions have no curriculum, no classes, no instructors and no real students.
“These purported schools and their corrupt administrators simply give out I-20 forms in exchange for payment,” he said.
“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,” Mr Fishman said.
To catch these recruiters, HIS developed an undercover investigative strategy that involved the creation of a school called the University of Northern New Jersey or UNNJ.
