 "American nightmare for Hyderabad students")
All set to kick-start his American dream in the New Year, Hyderabad's Shemanth Reddy would have been on campus in California by now, unpacked and getting to know his new friends. Instead, the 21-year-old computer science student is grappling with a sudden twist of events that has burst his bubble.
Reddy had heard about Indian students being sent back, but it was only after he came to know of his friend's plight that he had to take some tough decisions. "My friend was also headed for California. After spending almost 24 hours at the airport, immigration authorities in New York questioned him for five hours. He wasn't even given water to drink," says Reddy.
"They told him that the university he was to join wasn't a good one, so it was better for him to go back," elaborates Reddy, sharing how his friend isn't ready to discuss the ordeal yet. There were many other students who had to face the same thing, and his friend was fortunate in a way, continues Reddy -"at least he didn't have his personal phone messages checked; others faced that too."
This has made Reddy change his mind: he will chase his American dream afresh after a year.
According to news reports, close to 150 students travelling to the US to join universities in California have been sent back over the past few months.
On December 22, students headed to the US returned from Abu Dhabi, where they were locked up for over 16 hours during their pre-clearance (immigration) interviews. One of them was Amaresh Jana, who has shared his experience on Facebook. "They checked my WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, photo gallery, Gmail and bank accounts, and then after 16 hours of questioning, told me my visa was cancelled," shares Jana.
Fifty-four students were deported within 24 hours of Christmas Eve from 11 universities. A majority of these students were headed to the Silicon Valley University at San Jose and Northwestern Polytechnic University at Fremont.
As batches of students complaining of ill-treatment started coming in, the Ministry of External Affairs was quick to issue an advisory on December 23. Students seeking admission to the Silicon Valley University and Northwestern Polytechnic University were advised to "defer their travel to the US".
Proceeding with caution
Before that, Air India, acting on a tip-off from the US Customs and Border Protection Agency, stopped about 15 students from boarding a flight to the US - they were headed to the two universities.
While some were still hailing Air India as a good Samaritan for saving students from the trouble that awaited them at US immigration check points, the two universities started to hit back. Both are on the list of institutions approved for the Department of Homeland Security's Student and Exchange Visitor Programme.
The Silicon Valley University has put up online alerts about how the university was not blacklisted. Northwestern Polytechnic University has been more vocal in its defence. Its management sent a cease-and-desist letter to Air India accusing it of "tortious conduct" and unjustifiably "barring its students from travelling" to the US. It also sought an immediate apology and retraction of its statement about the university being "blacklisted" by the US State Department.
Northwestern Polytechnic University President Peter Hsieh believes the university's name has been "unfairly and permanently tarnished due to Air India's defamatory actions and because a relatively small percentage of our new students failed their customs interviews".
An Air India official shared how in cases of deportation, the airline that takes the passengers also has to bring them back, free of cost. "Air India is being singled out but it wasn't the only airline advising students or stopping them from boarding the aircraft," he states.
Immigration woes
Over the years, immigration authorities have grown wary of cases where newer residents in the country are unable to fend for themselves, says V Chowdary Jampala, president of the Telugu Association of North America. "There's a mushrooming of small firms in Andhra (Pradesh) and Telangana that are giving bad advice to students. They are being encouraged to join sub-standard universities and told part-time jobs would sustain their stay in the US," says Jampala.
Jampala believes consultant-led student migrations, as opposed to academic qualifications-led, also hinder the quality of students coming to the US. "The authorities have started looking into good academic credit as well as good financial credit," he says.
An advisory put out by the Ministry of External Affairs, which was made public on December 30, backs Jampala's words, suggesting that the denial of entry was due to unsatisfactory student interviews. It read: the US government has conveyed that the decision to deny entry to these students is not because of the corresponding institutions being "black-listed" but based on the assessment made by the US immigration authorities of individual applicants. According to the US government, the deported persons had presented information to the border patrol agent which was inconsistent with their visa status.
While the quality of students is up for debate, concerns about sub-standard education and fraudulent degrees are not unfounded. In January 2011, hundreds of Indian students, a majority of them from Andhra Pradesh, faced deportation possibilities when US officials raided the university they were enrolled in on charges of immigration fraud. Pleasanton-based Tri-Valley University, which worked out of a single building, made millions by admitting foreign students on student visas. Out of the 1,555 students it had, 95 per cent were from India.
And Tri-Valley is just one among at least half a dozen educational institutes that have been shut down or raided by US federal authorities in recent years over charges of immigration fraud. In 2014 alone, US authorities flagged about 150 of the 9,000-odd schools certified to accept foreign students for investigation as potential visa mills.
In light of recent events, Renuka Raja Rao, the country coordinator for US India Education Programme, has urged students to not blindly follow consultants and thoroughly check university credentials with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, Council for Higher Education Accreditation and Abet.org.
A brighter future?
Despite the recent scare, the promise of a brighter future has kept the F1 visa applications rolling. According to an official report, Indian students contributed $3.3 billion to the US economy in 2014. For the spring semester alone, the Northwestern Polytechnic University was expecting 1,200 to 1,300 students from India.
"We turned down over 2,000 applications for this semester, almost all of which were from India. As such, we expect 4,000 or more new students from India per year, depending upon how many we accept," says Hsieh. Twenty to 40 students headed for the university didn't clear immigration interviews and were sent back, he adds.
Estimates show that the majority of students who were sent back are of Telugu origin; this comes as no surprise once statistics comes out to play. In 2015, out of 90,000 applicants, 4,000 made the cut for student visas, and a majority of the applications were from Hyderabad.
According to Washington DC-based think tank Brookings Institution, which studied student inflow in the US between 2008 and 2012, Hyderabad, at 26,220 was issued the most F1 visas from India, nearly 30,000 when combined with Secunderabad. Add to this 2,000 F1 visas from Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam each and you gain pace over others like Mumbai (17,294) and Delhi (8,728) in a hip and a scotch.
While a few students return home with newly-minted degrees, others try and make a niche in corporate America. Undivided Andhra Pradesh, reasons Jampala, has a large number of engineering colleges.
"During the information technology boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a majority of the students who migrated to the US were from the Andhra area," reasons Jampala, adding how since almost everyone in the region knows someone working in the US, the dream of a similar lifestyle remains alive and kicking.
And though the American lifestyle continues to be both aspirational and achievable, those like Reddy who are in limbo have to put their dreams on hold.
