The eight Indians, who were recently arrested for recruiting several Students mostly from India to stay illegally in the United States by enrolling a fake university, have pleaded not guilty before a federal court in Michigan.
One of the eight Indians among arrested Phanideep Karnati, 35 from Louisville, Kentucky was released on a bond of USD 10,000 on Monday.
The seven others – Suresh Kandala, Barath Kakireddy, Santosh Sama, Prem Rampeesa, Avinash Thakkallapally, Aswanth Nune, and Naveen Prathipati – consented to their ongoing detention before a judge in Michigan, where they were presented along with Karnati days after their arrest.
In an across the nation Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation, eight Indians were held earlier this week from Florida, Detroit, and Virginia. It has likewise detained 130 students, including 129 Indian students.
All of them pleaded “not guilty”, John W Brusstar, attorney for Karanati told over phone from Michigan.
He accused the federal government of entrapping people by carrying out such a sting operation.
“It was all choreographed,” Brusstar told in response to a question.
None of the seven Indians, except for Karnati, had hired an attorney on Monday. All of them ate in the late 20s or 30s.
Brusstar said Karnati was released on a bail because of his good track record.
Karnati, an IT employee came to the U.S. ten years ago on H-1B visa. If convicted Karnati, as well as seven others, face imprisonment of up to five years.
According to the 16-page indictment, from February 2017 to January 2019, these eight Indians conspired to fraudulently facilitate hundreds of foreign nationals in illegally remaining and working in the U.S. by actively enlisting them to enroll into a metro Detroit private university – Farmington University.
ICE in a statement said, Unbeknownst to the conspirators, Farmington University was operated by special agents of the Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) as part of an undercover operation.
As part of the scheme, the recruiters and defendants assisted foreign citizen students in fraudulently obtaining immigration documents from the school and facilitated the creation of false student records, including transcripts, for the purpose of deceiving immigration authorities.
The illegal documents obtained as a consequence of the conspirators’ actions were based on mendacious claims, false statements and fraud since the purported foreign students had no aim of attending school, nor attended a single class, and were not bona fide students.
The ICE said that all participants in the scheme knew that the school had no instructors or actual classes.
The defendants intended to help shield and hide their customers/students from U.S. immigration authorities for money and collectively profited in excess of a quarter of a million dollars as a result of their scheme.
According to the indictment, the university was being used by foreign citizens as a “pay to stay” scheme which allowed these individuals to stay in the U.S. as a result of foreign citizens falsely asserting that they were enrolled as full-time students in an authorized educational program and that they were making normal progress toward winding up of the program.
“Each of the foreign citizen who enrolled and made tuition payments to the university knew that they would not attend accrual classes, earn credits or make progress towards an actual degree in a particular field of study – a pay to stay scheme,” it said.
“Rather their intent was to fraudulently maintain their student visa status and to obtain work authorization under the CPT program,” the indictment said.
It claims that each student was aware that the university’s program was not approved by the Department of Homeland Security and was illegal and that discretion should be used when talking about the programme with others.
-Sowmya Sangam
