Tri-Valley University Founder and President Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison

A San Francisco area woman was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison for running what prosecutors said was a sham university that served as a front for an immigration scam.

Susan Xiao-Ping Su, founder and president of the phony Tri-Valley University, was accused of charging foreigners tuition and other payments for visa-related documents that allowed them to live in the U.S. while she purported that they were here legally to study. She made more than $5.6 million and used the money to buy commercial real estate, a Mercedes Benz and multiple homes, including one at a golf club, federal prosecutors said Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Jon S. Tigar sentenced Su, 44, on Friday after she was convicted in March of visa fraud and other charges. She was also ordered to forfeit $5.6 million and pay more than $900,000 in restitution, prosecutors said.

"Student visas are intended to give people from around the world a chance to come to this country to enrich themselves with the vast learning opportunities available here," Tatum King, acting special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations, San Francisco, said in a statement. "But in this case, the defendant was interested in a different kind of enrichment, her own."

The Tri-Valley case is not unique in the San Francisco area. Jerry Wang, the chief executive officer of Herguan University and the University of East-West Medicine, is also facing visa fraud charges in connection with what authorities say is a similar scheme. He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial next month.

In the Tri-Valley case, employees testified that the school had no graduation or admission requirements, and that Su instructed her staff to fabricate transcripts and other documents.

The school described itself as a "Christian higher education institution" that provided higher education in engineering, business and ministry, according to court documents.

Su allegedly paid recruiters for referring new students

A New Immigration Fraud Ring Busted in Los Angeles - Charges Include Fraud and Bribery

The Los Angeles Time reported yesterday that Attorney Kwang Man "John" Lee was arrested for being the ring leader of an immigration fraud ring. The authorities reported that he was a man who could make things happen — for a price. For a pound of marijuana and $44,000, the Koreatown attorney allegedly said, he could get an immigrant client a U.S. citizenship. "Price is OK for the risk," Lee told an associate, according to federal authorities.

Mr. Lee was a silver-Corvette-driving attorney, also a former Immigration and Naturalization Service agent. He allegedly had associates at various stages of the immigration process willing to take bribes and provide favors for his clients. At Los Angeles International Airport, he had Customs and Border Protection officer Michael Anders, according to prosecutors. At Citizenship and Immigration Services, they alleged, he had officers Jesus Figueroa and Paul Lovingood. At Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he had special agent James Dominguez, according to court documents.

And he apparently had a long list of clients from across the globe, from Japan to Morocco to the Czech Republic, willing to pay the tens of thousands to cut a corner or two in the process for a permanent residency or citizenship in the U.S.

On May 8th, federal prosecutors announced charges against Anders, Figueroa, Lovingood, Dominguez and a client of Lee's, Mirei Gia Hofmann. The current and former immigration officials were indicted May 7th on charges including conspiracy, bribery, fraud and misuse of government seals. Hofmann faces a single count of immigration fraud.

Lee, who became an attorney in 1997, was previously charged in a separate criminal complaint of conspiring to defraud the U.S. government.

According to affidavits filed in the case, Lee plied the officials with lavish gifts and cash bribes in exchange for immigration benefits including forged admission stamps with a false date of entry into the U.S. and rubber-stamping fraudulent permanent residency or citizenship applications. Anders, who at one point lived with Lee, provided the attorney with a specialized security ink used by Border Patrol officials to stamp passports at airports, according to court papers.

In exchange, Lee bought round-trip tickets to Thailand for Dominguez and a 47-inch flat-screen TV and a computer for Lovingood, and gave thousands of dollars in cash to Figueroa, authorities allege. Anders was paid $50 each time he falsified an entry record, according to the indictment.

Lee complained to a confidential informant that he gets "headaches entertaining them, taking them out to dinner," according to an affidavit. He secured illegal immigration benefits for at least several dozen clients over the years, prosecutors said.

"It looks like this goes back at least 20 years," Assistant U.S. Atty. Meghan Blanco said. "By and large, it involves people who entered the country legally and then overstayed their visa."

New Report from Florida International University Finds DHS Secure Communities Not Targeting "Dangerous Criminals" As Directed By Obama Administration

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in South Florida are failing to abide by an Obama administration directive to focus deportation efforts on dangerous criminals, according to a report Monday by a Miami-based immigration advocacy group and researchers from a Florida university.

A majority of undocumented immigrants detained for deportation in Miami-Dade County under a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiative known as the Secure Communities program were not serious criminals, the report by Americans for Immigrant Justice (AIJ) and researchers at Florida International University said.

This is a pattern that is repeated across the country and the San Francisco Bay Area is no exception. Many of the deportations involve people who likely would be covered under proposals for an immigration reform bill currently being thrashed out by members of Congress.

The actions of ICE agents are at odds with guidance issued in June 2011 by the head of ICE, John Morton, who sought to prioritize the removal of convicted undocumented immigrants who posed a danger to national security or public safety, as well as those who game the system by dodging immigration hearings.

In a statement, ICE said it had received guidance restricting the detention of immigrants for minor misdemeanor offenses such as traffic infractions and other petty crimes. The guideline gives ICE discretion on how it is implemented.

See the entire report below.

False Promises: The Failure of Secure Communities

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DHS Secretary Napolitano Announces Final Rule in Permitting Aliens With Unlawful Presence to File I-601 Hardship Waivers Before Leaving US

WASHINGTON—Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today announced the posting of a final rule in the Federal Register that reduces the time U.S. citizens are separated from their immediate relatives (spouse, children and parents), who are in the process of obtaining visas to become lawful permanent residents of the United States under certain circumstances. The final rule establishes a process that allows certain individuals to apply for a provisional unlawful presence waiver before they depart the United States to attend immigrant visa interviews in their countries of origin. The process will be effective on March 4, 2013.

One of the more contentious aspects of this Final Rule involves aliens who are in removal proceedings. As written, anyone in deportation is not eligible for having their I-601 Hardship Waiver adjudicated before having to leave the U.S. to complete consular processing unless their case is administratively closed. Given the lack of action under the Prosecutorial Discretion guidelines by DHS local counsel, relief for aliens in removal under this Final Rule may be illusory.

Provisional Unlawful Presence Waivers of Inadmissiblity

“This final rule facilitates the legal immigration process and reduces the amount of time that U.S. citizens are separated from their immediate relatives who are in the process of obtaining an immigrant visa,” said Secretary Napolitano.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received more than 4,000 comments in response to the April 2, 2012 proposed rule and considered all of them in preparing the final rule.

“The law is designed to avoid extreme hardship to U.S. citizens, which is precisely what this rule achieves,” USCIS Director Mayorkas said. “The change will have a significant impact on American families by greatly reducing the time family members are separated from those they rely upon.”

Under current law, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who are not eligible to adjust status in the United States to become lawful permanent residents must leave the U.S. and obtain an immigrant visa abroad. Individuals who have accrued more than six months of unlawful presence while in the United States must obtain a waiver to overcome the unlawful presence inadmissibility bar before they can return to the United States after departing to obtain an immigrant visa. Under the existing waiver process, which remains available to those who do not qualify for the new process, immediate relatives cannot file a waiver application until after they have appeared for an immigrant visa interview abroad and the Department of State has determined that they are inadmissible.

In order to obtain a provisional unlawful presence waiver, the applicant must be an immediate relative of a U.S. citizen, inadmissible only on account of unlawful presence, and demonstrate the denial of the waiver would result in extreme hardship to his or her U.S. citizen spouse or parent. USCIS will publish a new form, Form I-601A, Application for a Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver, for individuals to use when applying for a provisional unlawful presence waiver under the new process.

Under the new provisional waiver process, immediate relatives must still depart the United States for the consular immigrant visa process; however, they can apply for a provisional waiver before they depart for their immigrant visa interview abroad. Individuals who file the Form I-601A must notify the Department of State’s National Visa Center that they are or will be seeking a provisional waiver from USCIS. The new process will reduce the amount of time U.S. citizen are separated from their qualifying immediate relatives

LAPD Chief Says Illegal Immigrants Arrested In Petty Crimes Won't Be Placed on ICE Holds

LAPD Police Chief, Charlie Beck, on Thursday unveiled plans to stop handing over undocumented immigrants arrested for low-level offenses to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for potential deportation. The move by Chief Beck represented a victory for immigrant rights activists just days after California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the TRUST ACT bill that would have extended statewide an approach similar to what Beck is proposing. Under a federal program launched in 2008 called Secure Communities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials work in partnership with local law enforcement agencies to deport undocumented immigrants arrested for crimes. The program helped the federal government to deport a record high of about 400,000 undocumented immigrants last year. Beck told reporters he does not believe federal detentions under the program should apply to undocumented immigrants arrested for "low-grade misdemeanor offenses" and similar crimes. "The LAPD is proposing to no longer grant an ICE hold requests without first reviewing the seriousness of the offense for which the person is being held, as well as their prior arrest history and gang involvement," Beck said. Beck said he believes in some cases the detention of illegal immigrants has unnecessarily split up families. "Community trust is extremely important," he said. "It's my intent that we gain that trust back." Beck said his department arrests about 105,000 people per year and receives ICE holds for about 3,400 of them. About half of those requests are for misdemeanor crimes, which include everything from vandalism to driving offenses, and Beck said he believes about 400 of those requests would be denied by his department if his proposed policy goes into effect. Beck said his department would still honor ICE detention requests on all felonies, which include crimes of violence such as murder and assault, and that his goal was to implement the new protocols by Jan. 1. The proposal, which has the support of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, will have to be presented to the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners for their review. The law vetoed by Brown on Sunday would have made California the first state to bar local authorities from honoring federal detention requests on undocumented immigrants, unless those individuals were charged or convicted of a serious or violent felony. Brown faulted the bill for not exempting individuals who had committed crimes such as child abuse, drug trafficking and selling weapons. Law enforcement officials had opposed the bill, including Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.

First Group of Approval Notices for "Dreamers" Sent

After approximately three weeks of accepting applications from young undocumented immigrants seeking to avoid deportation and get a work permit, ("Dreamers") the government already has approved some of the roughly 72,000 applications the government has received. The Homeland Security Department said Tuesday that a small group of applications has been approved and those immigrants are being notified this week about the decision. The department did not say how many applications had been approved. The first wave of approvals comes months head of DHS' own internal estimates of how long the application process for the administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program could take – and less than 60 days before the Nov. 6 elections. According to an internal DHS document obtained by The Associated Press, the department's Citizenship and Immigration Services had estimated that each application could take several months to be completed. "Following a thorough, individualized case review, USCIS has now begun notifying individuals of the determination on their deferral requests," DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said in a statement. He said about 72,000 applications have been received since the program's Aug. 15 start. DHS said background checks, including finger prints checks, are being conducted on each immigrant before an application can be approved. The average wait time for approval is expected to be about four months to six months. Most applications for immigration benefits take several months for to process. In certain circumstances, people can pay extra fees to speed up the process. There currently is no such option for deferred action applications. President Barack Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced on June 15 that young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. before they turned 16, are 30 or younger, are high school graduates or are in college or have served in the military would be eligible to apply to avoid deportation for up to two years and get a work permit. The immigrants also could not have a serious criminal record. Applicants for deferred deportation must pay a $465 paperwork fee that is expected to cover the cost of processing the work permit and for finger printing. DHS has estimated that as many as 1.04 million immigrants could apply to avoid being deported in the program's first year, with about 890,000 being eligible immediately. According to the DHS document, it could cost between $467 million and $585 million to process applications in the first two years of the program, with revenues from fees estimate at $484 million. That means the cost to the government could range from a gain of $17 million to a loss of more than $101 million.

California Legislature Contemplates the TRUST ACT

The California Legislature recently passed the TRUST Act and the bill has been sent to the Governor so signature. The bill aims to correct the inherent flaws of the federal Secure Communities program.

For nearly three years, the Obama administration has advertised the Secure Communities program as a targeted enforcement tool that identifies "dangerous criminal aliens" for deportation. Over and over, federal officials have insisted that the program's focus would be chiefly limited to those immigrants whose criminal convictions show that they pose a danger to public safety.

But that's not the case. In practice, Secure Communities is a dragnet that fails to distinguish between felons convicted of serious crimes and nonviolent arrestees facing civil immigration violations. In California alone, more than half of the 75,000 people deported under the program since it began in 2009 had no criminal history or had only misdemeanor convictions.

Under the program, local law enforcement agencies are required to send the fingerprints of everyone booked into local jails to the FBI, which checks them against criminal databases. Department of Homeland Security officials then check the prints against immigration records and issue requests, known as "detainers," to local authorities asking them to hold particular individuals for 48 hours. As a result, immigrants arrested for illegal street vending or driving without a license who would ordinarily be released have to sit in jail for two days. After that, they are either transferred to federal custody or released, although some end up in jail for longer.

Local officials across the country are deeply concerned about having to spend their scarce resources filling already overcrowded jails with non-dangerous arrestees, and are also concerned that the program will undermine law enforcement by deterring immigrants from cooperating with police. So California lawmakers have passed the Trust Act, which would require police to release those who have posted bail, face no serious charges and have no prior serious criminal convictions, despite federal detainers. Officials in New York, the District of Columbia and Cook County, Ill., already have similar rules in place.