Kumar [PK Srinivas, an IT worker, whose middle name was Kumar] recorded a video in early 2015, “Edu Episode 53, Students FAQs – BTech, MS in USA”. “You have to ask yourself: If I finished my BTech, why did I not get a job? Ask your principals, lecturers. Email your MLA, MP, district collector, honourable chief minister, even the honourable prime minister. You email – what is there? Youth is future, right? This is after you do RCA, Root Cause Analysis, on why you couldn’t get a job. If nothing wrong, then ask them, where are the industries, where are the companies? If they are not, then why are you giving permission to BTech colleges? Close them.”
Towards the end of the video, he revealed another secret of foreign guest workers, implicating tens of thousands of Indian master’s students. “Every student knows where he is applying. See, for example, you get a seat in IIT Chennai, IIT Assam – [or in] an [obscure] engineering college in Srikakulam, on the Orissa-AP border – so don’t you know which college to apply? You know better than anybody else. Same thing here, whether it is unrecognised or fake university like Tri-Valley, they know well in advance. I don’t believe how media projected. I don’t believe they are ignorant. They know. They all want to come to America, study for less money.”
The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) had approved Tri-Valley University (TVU) – a for-profit institution in Pleasanton, California – to admit international students in February 2009. DHS, during a site visit that month, confirmed capacity for “approximately 30 students”. But the school prospered at a blinding speed: May 2009, 11 students; September 2009, 75; January 2010, 447; May 2010, 939. September 2010, 1,555 over 95% from India and a vast majority from Andhra Pradesh. As the enrolment surged, so did the earnings. Starting with an initial investment of $5,000 in 2008, its revenue jumped to $4.19 million in September 2010. Its president and founder, Susan Xiao-Ping Su, bought a 6,384-square-foot house. She commuted to college in a Mercedes-Benz.
On January 19, 2011, ICE raided the school, accusing her of running an immigration racket. The federal laws imposed three employment conditions on international students during semesters: a) they could only work twenty hours per week; b) they could only work on campus; and c) they could get a Curricular Practical Training (CPT), making them eligible for internships in relevant fields, only after the first year. TVU violated all of them. It handed out CPTs in the first semester, allowing students to work off-campus full-time and take all courses online. They spread to different states – from New Jersey to Virginia to Texas – working at a dollar store, a 7-Eleven, a tobacco shop. Five hundred fifty-three of them listed a Sunnyvale apartment as their address. Many hadn’t seen the college. ICE called it a “sham university”.
Andhra Pradesh’s NRI cell disclosed that TVU had appointed two consultants for the South Asian region, both in Hyderabad, and six out of its 18 board members hailed from Andhra Pradesh. The raid got wide media attention in India. “We are even afraid to get a traffic citation. Why would we go and commit fraud,” said a student’s husband. “Most of the students that joined the university are [from] well-to-do families in India.” Another said, “We paid a lot of fees, we wasted a lot of time and money, a lot of us are feeling nervous and it’s totally depressing students.” They had three options: report to ICE and pick a day to leave the country, depart on their own or transfer to a different university. A week after the raid, 35 of them met with Indian Consul General, Sushmita Gongulee Thomas in San Francisco. They also drafted a petition, requesting the DHS and ICE consider their plight. The Telugu Association of North America (TANA) posted the petition on its website. “Ultimately, we want to protect the kids within the boundaries of the law. They are not here to break the law,” said its president, Jayaram Komati. “This is no fault of the students. It is the university not living up to the norms of society.” The organisation contacted lawyers and requested Californian congressman Pete Stark to allow the students to move to other accredited universities. The American Telugu Association (ATA), too, hosted a conference call with a law firm, attended by over 300 students. Like TANA, ATA spoke to “various US Senators and Congressmen” to help the “victims”.
ICE slapped ankle monitors on them to track their movements, creating a furore. “We have conveyed to the US authorities,” said the Indian Ministry of External Affairs,”‘that the students, most of whom are victims themselves, should get fair and reasonable treatment and the unwarranted monitors must be removed.” The Indian external affairs minister, SM Krishna, told the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, that, while the US investigated Tri-Valley, its students deserved “humanitarian considerations” and the chance to transfer to a different university. She promised to “personally intervene”, ensuring them justice.
In May 2011, a federal grand jury indicted Su on 33 criminal counts. Five months later, the United States Attorney Office charged four Indian students – Vishal Dasa, Tushar Tambe, Ramakrishna Reddy and Anji Reddy – with conspiracy to commit visa fraud. In November 2011, the district court of Northern California called the TVU students “victims of fraud”, helping the Indian diaspora emerge from this ordeal with conscience, reputation and self-righteousness intact.
So did this story end here? Did the students really not know anything? Was it just a rogue university? Only (former or potential) Tri-Valley students could answer these questions. But where do you find them? Whom did the Indian students, wanting to study in America, contact in moments of confusion and indecision – especially those interested in an unknown school? Fellow applicants. Where did they interact? Online. Now, since thousands of them moved to the US every year, they must have frequented famous websites that archived such discussions?
Damn.
All hiding in plain sight.
Indian immigration forums.
When Indian students had applied to TVU, it was so new – and so obscure – that they didn’t know its accreditation status. So they checked its website. But littered with grammatical and spelling errors and limited information about the courses – many taught by Su herself – it was an amusing mess. Its mission statement read: “To make Christian scientists, engineers, business leaders, and lawyers for the glory of God, with solid academic professionalism and Christian faith, therefore to live out Christ-like characters, value and compassion in the world, to make an impact and shine as its light.”
Prospective students discussed the college on immigration forums. “TVU provides hassle-free admission,” wrote one of them. “GRE, GMAT not mandatory, TOEFL is pretty much the only requirement. Low semester fee, OPT, CPT from the day the course starts. No tests, no mandatory online classes, a perfect way to bypass the visa process!” Charging only $16,000 for two years, TVU’s exponential growth resulted from a “referral” and “profit-sharing” system. Referrals earned a student up to 20% of the tuition fees. If that person referred someone else, the original referee netted around 5%: a classic “pyramid scheme’.
Among the countless TVU threads on immigration forums, the one on Trackitt, titled “Tri-Valley University – “CPT, OPT”, generated the most interest. It began on April 5, 2010, nine months before the raid, and had over 600 comments. An initial post read: “I, in fact, all the members reading this thread, agree that TVU is a non-accredited university. In such case how is it possible for SEVIS [Student and Exchange Visitor Information System] to give it a recognition and also how USCIS is issuing I-20 with or without CPT.”
An American school didn’t always need accreditation for SEVIS approval. In such a case, ICE required it to submit letters from three accredited institutions that accepted its credits. But these students knew nothing about those schools – or whether Tri-Valley had those letters. So they continued to air their desperation. “I want to enroll in any programme of any university which gives full-time CPT from day 1 and is the cheapest,” wrote a Trackitt user. “I’m on H-4 status, how long will it take to convert to F-1?” H-4 visas were reserved for the immediate family members of H-1Bs, such as spouses or children. In 2010, H-4s couldn’t work full-time in the US. But a student visa removed that restriction. Tri-Valley provided an F-1 status and instant CPT – a sudden chance to mint money.
“Tri-Valley University’s F1/CPT/OPT option is to make my spouse legally eligible to work/gain some MS course-related work experience for a couple of years,” added Sathishkvvsm, who had started the thread, “before the economy gets better and companies starts sponsoring H-1s again.”
“My wife is in the same boat as yours. How can I contact you?”
This pattern recurred throughout the thread: Indian husbands, and their wives, discussing ways to enter Tri-Valley and the repercussions of such a decision. Two weeks after the raid, Andhra Pradesh’s NRI Cell submitted a report to the chief minister. “[It] shows how many from [Andhra Pradesh] who went to Tri-Valley had a spouse living in the US,” read a Times of India article. A source quoted in the piece said, “Many of the spouses now facing deportation and federal charges had taken admission in Tri-Valley within just three to four days of landing in the US with the help of agents.”
But did they, as reported before, work part-time jobs, or did this secret hide more secrets?
“I am also looking for some training especially in QA or BA field,” wrote Khushboo143, an H-4 TVU applicant. “Can you give me some pointers?? or any contacts ??” Saimallipeddi, another H-4, asked, “Contractors are not ready to apply H-1 without client letter so I am trying to do MS online. So is it possible to do MS through Trivalley University?” An H-4 from Memphis commented, “Not even one consultancy is ready to offer H-1 … you believe or not all the consultancies are advising to go for TVU and get CPT.”
So desi body shops eyed TVU, knowing its “Day-1 CPT” would provide a cheap, sizeable workforce. The demand for such workers was so high that it sometimes looked like the only criterion for landing a job. “I have a pending offer waiting for me to get F-1 then get CPT,” clarified a Trackitt user. After several months, Khushboo even got a reply: “If you want a training in BA/QA, you can contact me … We are IT consulting company based in Fremont, CA.”
Staying true to internet discourse, the Trackitt thread spawned different topics. The discussions intensified when the moniker RisingSun joined. Unlike others, RisingSun didn’t inquire about but defended the university, sharing information only privy to a TVU administrator. Even innocuous questions about the school annoyed RisingSun who flung a series of insults (“I really suggest that you go to see a Doctor (mental department) to talk about all of your thinking!”). Their responses also implied close association with – or direct ownership of – Tri-Valley (“my University will never give you people any Job!”).
Soon, the thread turned into the university’s help desk: students lobbing queries at RisingSun who answered with ease. RisingSun’s answers even matched some posts: “TVU has received hundreds of status change approvals, many wives are pursuing their higher education, and many visas are approved every single day!” At one point, RisingSun itself completed a part of the puzzle: “Many company can not afford H1 any more (for H1 there a certain salary uplift in each state).”
It all made sense.
Excerpted with permission from Wild Wild East: Exiled Americans, Enslaved Indians and the Systemic Abuse of the H-1B Visa Programme, Tanul Thakur, Westland.
