Fake US university is nothing less than a government entrapment scheme

As a rather bizarre illustration of the lengths the USA will go to in order to prevent or discourage immigration, there is perhaps no better example than the University of Farmington.

In 2015, way back in the Obama years, even before Trump and his anti-immigration crusade took over, the fake university was set up by undercover agents from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency as a method of exposing "pay-to-stay" immigration fraud, foreign nationals who enter the country on a student visa with the express intention of staying in the country. It was supposedly based in Michigan, and it had its own website, Facebook page and (fake) calendar of events. It advertised undergraduate tuition for $8,500 a year and graduate tuition for $11,000 a year. But there is no such university: it's grassy "campus" is actually in a business park in a Detroit suburb.

This last Wednesday, 130 students (129 of them from India) were arrested by ICE, and they face possible deportation if convicted. A further 8 people, who allegedly acted as recruiters, were also arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harbouring aliens for profit. Prosecutors say that those who enrolled knew that the facility was illegal, but the Indian government is protesting and arguing that, while the recruiters may have known, the students may have been duped and tricked into enrolling.

Certainly, from my point of view, this looks like a clear case of entrapment by the US government. If the fake university had not been established, then the students would not have been in the USA in the first place. So, what then was the point of it, other than to lure and inveigle young foreigners into coming to the United States: it is effectively a problem of their own making. Some of the students may have understood what they were doing, other maybe not, and yes, I am sure that they hoped to be able to stay in the USA - that, in itself, is not a crime. Either way, this is a desperate and underhand ploy by the US government, and it should be discouraged in the future.