March 4, 2011
Mr. Louis Farrell
Director, Student and Exchange Visitor Program
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Department of Homeland Security 500 12th Street, SW Washington, D.C. 20598-5600
Re: SEVP Certification
Dear Mr. Farrell,
The country has a very strong interest in attracting international students as has been frequently articulated by our nation’s leaders, including Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. It is vitally important that the integrity of the international educational community not be compromised by illegitimate institutions that look only to profit or by individuals committing fraud.
The issue of SEVP certification of schools has come into question in the wake of the widely-reported and deeply troubling case involving Tri-Valley University (TVU). The SEVP certification process recognizes the need for schools to prove their bona fides before they are granted the authority to issue Form I-20, Certificate of Eligibility for Student Status, to foreign students seeking to study in the United States. The requirements for certification understandably are different for accredited institutions and those that are either non-accredited or have received accreditation that is not recognized by the Department of Education. News reports have indicated that TVU provided fraudulent letters to fulfill the requirement that three accredited institutions accept credits transferred from TVU, one of the aforementioned requirements under the SEVP certification process.
It is essential that the certification process be rigorous to maintain the integrity of the SEVIS system. Crucial to the reliability of the system is the requirement that non-accredited schools and schools with accreditation not recognized by the Department of Education provide additional proof of their mission and viability. It is thus imperative that SEVP check the proof that is provided to root out fraudulent claims. Though incidents of fraud may be very rare, the impact to international education of one criminal actor could easily be quite dire.
March 4, 2011
Page 2
Through our long-standing work with your office, I am confident that you appreciate the need to ensure integrity of the certification process, and I look forward to hearing what steps SEVP is taking toward that end. As always, please let us know how we can be helpful.
Sincerely,
Marlene M. Johnson
Executive Director and CEO
Here's the story of the event that stimulated this epistle:
March 20, 2011
Little-Known Colleges Exploit Visa Loopholes to Make Millions Off Foreign Students
5729-trivalley
Karen Kasmauski for The Chronicle
A federal raid on Tri-Valley U., which investigators say took foreign students’ money in exchange for enabling them to work, has put the university’s 1,500 students in limbo. Above, four students wait to be interrogated by immigration agents at an office in Northern Virginia.
Enlarge Image
close 5729-trivalley
Karen Kasmauski for The Chronicle
A federal raid on Tri-Valley U., which investigators say took foreign students’ money in exchange for enabling them to work, has put the university’s 1,500 students in limbo. Above, four students wait to be interrogated by immigration agents at an office in Northern Virginia.
By Tom Bartlett, Karin Fischer, and Josh Keller
Early on a Friday morning, four college students stand shivering in the parking lot of an office complex in Sterling, Va. The building itself is unremarkable, red brick and dark glass, but security cameras are bolted to the walls, cement posts line the perimeter, and coils of concertina wire surround the trash bins. This is a branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The students arrived more than an hour early for their appointment. They haven't slept or eaten in two days, passing time instead by obsessively organizing their documents and drinking cup after cup of strong black tea. Their eyelids are at half- mast, their hands shoved in jacket pockets. They are all Indian, all from the city of Hyderabad, and all possibly in deep trouble.
These students, like roughly 1,500 others from India, were enrolled at Tri-Valley University, a California institution that was raided by federal agents in January. The government seized property, threatened to deport students, and in legal filings called Tri-Valley a "sham university" that admitted and collected tuition from foreign students but didn't require them to attend class. (The president of Tri-Valley, Susan Xiao-Ping Su, denies the charges.) Many students allegedly worked full-time, low-level retail jobs—in one case, at a 7-Eleven in New Jersey—that were passed off as career training so they could be employed while on student visas. The university listed 553 students as living in a single two-bedroom apartment near the college; in fact, students were spread out across the country, from Texas to Illinois to Maryland.
More:http://chronicle.com/article/Little-Known-Colleges-Exploit/126822/
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