Tri Valley-like fraud surfaces; AP students future uncertain

Washington, Jul 29: Yet another Tri-Valley like fraud has surfaced from the US and as expected the victims of the fraud are mostly Indians. The university in question is the University of Northern Virginia (UNVA), that has been raided by investigating and law enforcement agencies in the US on suspected charges of visa fraud.

The university is under the scanner by officials and agencies including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). They seized many materials from the Annandale campus of the university like documents and hard drives. ICE spokeswoman Cori W Bassett has been quoted as saying in a statement, "Today, officials from ICE's Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP) served UNVA with a Notice of Intent to Withdraw (NOIW) UNVA's authorization to admit foreign students."

The major student base of the university is from India with the major chunk from Andhra Pradesh. There are close to 2400 students in the university. Though no official communication has been passed to the students by the university administration, notices have been pasted outside the varsity that it was open and functioning.

The US officials have confirmed the Indian counterparts that they would deal with the case sensibly and with caution. There are reports that the UNVA had issued visas to a large number of students when they were allowed to issue only 50. The students will now have the option to move to another University, with officials stating that their visas will not be terminated.

In a notice issued by the ICE to UNVA, it said, "UNVA students must immediately depart the country if they are unable to continue to attend classes and maintain their active status in a manner required by the regulation or if they are unable or do not wish to seek transfer to another SEVP-certified institution. UNVA officials no longer have access to SEVIS and not be able to manage non-immigrant students records in SEVIC."

The notice added, "UNVA non-immigrant students should contact SEVP, as they would their designated school official (DSO), to report any changes, so their SEVIS record and Form I-20 can be updated accordingly."

OneIndia News