Senators Call for Crackdown on Illegal Student Visas

In the wake of an immigration raid on what government officials have called a “sham university” in California, five U.S. senators are calling for an “immediate crackdown” on the illegal use of student visas by foreign nationals to attend such phony institutions. In a letter, the lawmakers urge the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, both part of the Department of Homeland Security, to formulate a list of high-risk factors for fraud within 90 days and then conduct site visits within the next year to every college and school certified to issue visa-related documents that exhibits those factors. They also call for heightened penalties for the operators of sham institutions and for greater information sharing about student visas between homeland-security agencies and the Department of State. In a separate letter, two of the senators ask the Government Accountability Office to investigate how the government certifies and monitors institutions approved to issue visa-related documents.