Fake schools draw scrutiny of federal investigators

From her hometown in India in 2010, Bhanu Challa said she had no reason to doubt that Tri-Valley University was a legitimate American school where she could pursue a master's degree.
Its website featured smiling students in caps and gowns and promised a leafy campus in a San Francisco Bay Area suburb.
Months later, her hands were in cuffs as federal investigators questioned her motives for being in the US.
Authorities told her that Tri-Valley was a sham school. It was selling documents that allowed foreigners to obtain US student visas, and in some cases work in the country, while providing almost no instruction, according to federal investigators.

"I was blank, totally blank ...," Challa said, recalling her shock. "I didn't know what to do, who I could approach." Tri-Valley is among at least half a dozen schools shut down or raided by federal authorities in recent years over allegations of immigration fraud. Like Tri-Valley, they had obtained permission from US immigration officials to admit foreign students.
But most offered little or no instruction or didn't require all students to attend classes, instead exploiting the student visa system for profit, investigators said.

"If there's a way to make a buck, some people will do it," said Brian Smeltzer, chief of the Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations.

Last year alone, Smeltzer said, his office flagged about 150 of the roughly 9,000 schools certified to accept foreign students for investigation as potential visa mills.
Meltzer said many of the schools the agency investigates are in California, which has the highest number of foreign students and schools certified to accept them. New York has the second most.
Government watchdogs say the recent visa fraud cases have exposed gaps in ICE's oversight of schools that admit foreign students, a problem the agency says is being corrected. And experts say the scams hurt the reputation of the US higher education system, which currently enrolls about 900,000 foreign students.

"If anybody has any illusions there was one just bad apple, that's not the case," said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal policy analysis with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "There are plenty of them out there."
At California Union University in Fullerton, owner Samuel Chai Cho Oh staged phony graduation ceremonies as part of a visa scheme, according to immigration officials.
He pleaded guilty to visa fraud and money laundering and was sentenced to a year in prison in 2011.
At College Prep Academy in Duluth, Georgia, president Dong Seok Yi conspired to enroll some women with the understanding they would not attend classes, but work at bars, prosecutors alleged. He was convicted of immigration document fraud and sentenced last year to 21 months in prison.

Investigators say Tri-Valley, with more than 1,000 students, many of them Indian nationals, was among the largest school fraud scams they have encountered.
The Tri-Valley case also sparked protests in India, where officials objected to US authorities placing ankle monitors on former students.