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Might as well say the same thing here that I said on Twitter: this is a waste of government resources for the sake of being mean. ICE has a charter - to investigate and infiltrate border-crossing crime groups. Drugs, human trafficking, money laundering, that kind of thing. This particular op had no chance of finding anything like that. It was targeted at people who posed no harm to anybody. Yes, maybe it could have caught a few of the people ICE is supposed to be looking for, but almost by accident. The price in both dollars and in liberty was too high for that to be a strategy, and there's no way that was even in the minds of the people who planned or implemented it.

ICE as it exists should be abolished. Even some ICE old-timers who were doing its real work say so. A new agency with ICE's original charter would be a reasonable thing to have, but there's no way to get that under the current structure.

Well said. I wish they would actually go after the fraudulent diploma mills and sham universities that exist only for visas. Why not run sting ops against them by posing as students instead of against fricking students trying to maintain immigration status?

I lost it at this:

>The Department of Homeland Security’s list of certified schools where international students can enroll includes the University of Farmington.

I don't know the specifics but can someone explain why this is not entrapment?

What next, leave warm blankets near the homeless saying they're free to take and then arrest them for theft?

Also DHS's list of certified schools just lost all its meaning and legitimacy. If MIT is on that list it might as well be a fraudulent university for all we know.

This kind of shenanigans will just further plummet the already lower university enrollment.

If you are setting up a sting, wouldn't you want it to look legit as possible? ICE is part of DHS so it makes sense they would add it to their own list if the goal was to catch people attempting to exploit the program. If a student enrolled in this institution, it wouldn't have taken long for them to realize this was a sham and transfer out if they were truly seeking education. I believe it wasn't entrapment because ICE only set up the fake university, they didn't actually recruit people to it. That was other "students/recruiters" who were enrolled and helping others out to join (hence the indictments of the 8 recruiters). Also in there was this in the article: >Khaalid Walls, a spokesman for ICE in Detroit, told local news station WXYZ that the students had entered the United States legally on F-1 visas after being accepted to legitimate schools and had later transferred to the University of Farmington.

If they were accepted to legit schools and then transferred to this one it seems likely that they weren't seeking education, but a means to stay here, which would be in violation of the visa.

> why this is not entrapment

because they are charging the recruiters too! Hahaha this is hysterically bad, so because government agents werent the ones getting people to do what they wouldnt have otherwise done

And because deportation isnt a criminal charge

All necessary elements for an entrapment defense

But The recruiters might have a defense and do face criminal charges

> And because deportation isnt a criminal charge

but isn't it entrapment of the recruiters?

I don't know, it may be legal but it's not ethical.

Presumably they're not being charged with attending a phony university. They weren't "entraped" to be here without a visa.
Enrolling in the school ostensibly isn't illegal per se.
Complaining about the executive branch enforcing the law is like complaining to an umpire about the rules of baseball. Want to change the law? That's what legislators are for! The laws in question were put in place long before the current administration took the executive seat.
The best way to change a law that reasonable people disagree with, is to enforce it effectively.
That's not how our system works for better or worse. The executive branch has co-opted much of congress's authority over the years, so we now have a system where the executive branch is also a legislative branch.

You can complain about the long term problem, and the short term problem at the same time.

Executive branch makes decisions about priorities all the time. They certainly don't enforce all the laws all the time with the same effort.

It makes sense to complain, criticise or defend those decisions.

This isn't about the fact that they're enforcing the law. It's about how. Even if I loved the way the law is, I'd still object to enforcing it in a way that takes resources away from catching serious criminals and uses them instead to go after people who pose little to no threat.
The cruelty is the point.
> The cruelty is the point.

No, it isn't. If you took any time to talk to any of the tremendous number of reasonable, empathic people working at ICE, you could not say that with a straight face.

The mandate of ICE is to enforce immigration and customs laws, not to "be cruel to foreigners" or some such. Making a dehumanizing moral caricature of people you disagree with is not helpful to anyone who needs help.

>A new agency with ICE's original charter would be a reasonable thing to have, but there's no way to get that under the current structure.

One of the strong points of the current president is kicking out illegals, so it could be argued that abolishing the ICE would be simply antidemocratic.

Illegals? You mean undocumented residents?

Personally I don’t think the president has any strong points other than being a racist, misogenoist, pathological liar, and narcissist.

> A new agency with ICE's original charter would be a reasonable thing to have, but there's no way to get that under the current structure.

It seems to me that you can run ICE without necessarily having figures like Joe Arpaio or Donald Trump as ideological sponsors while accomplishing the same job.

I've read on a few occasions that immigration was even more strictly enforced under Obama's administration, but it was done without xenophobic rhetoric, which seems ideal.

> ...but it was done without xenophobic rhetoric, which seems ideal.

To anyone who is listening rather than assuming, it seems that the Trump administration has done it without xenophobic rhetoric as well.

Terrible headline!

Students knew that the scheme was illegal “and that discretion should be used when discussing the program with others,” prosecutors wrote in their indictment.

This was not a fake university at all. This was a fake fake university.

The former would be offensive. The latter is a brilliant sting operation I 100% endorse.

From the description it sounds like entrapment. Which is why I can't believe it and why I think there is something missing...
Notice they didn't charge the 600 students who enrolled. They charged only 8 of those students who recruited lots of other students. That's kinda shady but it's probably a step removed from entrapment. The article doesn't have anything from the defense's side though.
Yeah, that helps a lot. Still, while the students who enrolled knew it was a fraud, the article didn't mention how many wasted time and money (and aspiration) applying.

Also, prosecutors said that this is proof that the student visa program could be abused. That's not clear at all from this case. We know at least one of the fake school's neighbors knew something was wrong. We don't know how likely this was to have been discovered by authorities routinely, or how many applicants reported the fraud. This is going to put extra pressure on the student visa program for no good reason.

This is confusing.

> eight people who allegedly worked as “recruiters” for the school and collectively helped at least 600 students to remain in the country under false pretenses now face federal conspiracy charges

If this was a fake university set up by ICE, why are its employees being charged with conspiracy? (The Detroit News article clarifies that the recruiters did not know it was a fake university)

And for that matter, how is this whole thing not crystal-clear entrapment, at least for the "recruiter" employees, if not for the "students" themselves? The Detroit News article, again, quotes a law professor / prosecutor as saying "it's not entrapment":

> “The government can put out the bait, but it’s up to the defendants to fall for it.”

...but isn't "putting out the bait" what entrapment is? (That's a sincere, not rhetorical question, I'm not a lawyer and don't play one on TV)

AFAIK, genuine entrapment involves directly appealing to suspects to convince them to commit a crime which they would not otherwise have committed. In this case, the those enrolling had clearly intended to misrepresent their visa status, and the recruiters clearly intended to help them with that.

As for the "recruiters", I think they mean to say that these were independent people who offered their services and are alleged to have knowingly aided the commission of the unlawful acts (i.e. conspiracy) involved in aiding the misrepresentation of the visa status of those attempting to enroll.

It's not entrapment if the crime (being in the country illegally) was already committed.
Interesting that the article explains this is the same sort of sting that was run in NJ under Obama.

Reminds me of those stories of police departments sending 'you won the lottery' announcements to local criminals who had to appear to collect their prize in person...whereupon they were promptly arrested.

It's fun to go on LinkedIn and look for "University of Northern New Jersey". There are a lot more people on there then you might think.

I find it amusing; I never finished my degree either but I try and be at least up-front about it.

Sorry, I'm a little confused here on the 8 recruiters.

>The federal indictments name eight people in eight states who allegedly worked as recruiters for the school. All have been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harboring aliens for profit. They face a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

So ICE employed recruiters, and is now prosecuting them for doing what they were told? A law enforcement agency hired people, required them to break the law (presumably under threat of dismissal), and then intends to jail them for it?

>So ICE employed recruiters

The article looks to have made it sound like ICE employed them, but I don't believe that is the case. It seems more likely they (the recruiters) were acting independently getting international students to transfer to the fake school knowing it wasn't a legit school (hence the "pay to stay" statement) and helping them with that process while unaware it was actually setup by ICE.

This makes perfect sense if the recruiters knew they were running a fake university.

If a drug dealer hires henchmen to sell their drugs, and under threat of dismissal tells them to move a certain amount of product, the henchmen are still guilty of a crime.

If the kingpin is actually the FBI, everyone working for them is still going to jail.

Except selling drugs is illegal, recruiting students isn't.

Keep in mind their employer was in "The Department of Homeland Security’s list of certified schools".

Their work was only illegal because their employer turned out to be "corrupt". And presumably the cover was strong enough that doing your due diligence on your new employer wouldn't raise any red flags.

As an employee is it my responsibility to ensure that my day-to-day work hasn't been made illegal due to my employer's actions!?

These set-up stings always throw me off a little bit. It's like sure these people are breaking the law, that's clearly wrong. But shouldn't we be fixing the system that isn't good enough to catch fake transcripts and fake schools being submitted, or were any visa applications for this school accepted for the sake of letting ICE catch a few fake students.
That's basically what they did here since "the federal indictments name eight people in eight states who allegedly were students at the school and recruited additional students to enroll." Those were the people who were allegedly helping these people fake the transcripts to commit this fraud.
I am quite disappointed that they didn't name the place Winston University: https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/winston-univer...
How is this not entrapment? Yes, the students knowingly signed up for a fake university and used it for visa application, but the fake university only existed because the government set it up.

If people applying for student visas for fake universities is a real problem, why not just compare their applications with a list of real universities?

Especially putting the fake uni on DHS’s list of certified schools. Is there a problem of fake unis getting on DHS's list? Otherwise the crime they committed (applying for a visa for a fake university certified by the DHS) would have been literally impossible if DHS/ICE didn't intentionally certify a fake uni.

If the goal of your organization is "to investigate illegal movement of people and goods" (on ICE's website), I would think this would be a safe and effective way to do it.
Trying to be cute, get press and promoted? ICE and everyone knows damn well where "illegals" are working. No need to spend money on such elaborate ruses to find them.
Is entrapment not illegal in the US?
The law makes a clear distinction between entrapment and opportunity.

Setting up a "honeypot" is not entrapment.

That's not to say that this was anything other than a waste of time and resources, and a textbook example of what happens when a law enforcement agency is unleashed from regulation.

Thanks for the explanation, I hadn't thought about that difference, makes sense.
Paywall warning.
This makes no sense. If any of the students who enrolled there were illegal immigrants, they should be granted green cards instantly. These are the people who want to learn, work, and better themselves: a clear net benefit to society.

[I'm purposefully avoiding the topic of ICE, ethics, and a number of other things here: just wanted to make one point]

Apparently the university had no real classes or campus, so any students who continued to use it to maintain their visa after discovering as much, are clearly not "people who want to learn, work, and better themselves".