A federal appeals court ruled last week that hundreds of foreign students attending the University of Michigan, which turned out to be a sting operation run by federal immigration officials, can sue the government to recoup their tuition fees.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rule On June 25, the U.S. government was not immune to a 2020 lawsuit filed by Teja Ravi, a fake former “Farmington” student, on behalf of herself and other students because the U.S. government signed contracts with hundreds of students. contract, which included: Ravi thanked it for services it had never provided.
The ruling overturned a lower court’s 2022 decision to dismiss Ravi’s lawsuit and sent it back to the lower court for further consideration. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have argued that the governments are protected by sovereign immunity from Ravi’s lawsuit.
The three-judge panel unanimously ruled that the government was not immune and had not sufficiently proven its argument that its contract with Ravi was unenforceable because it had no intention of honoring the agreement from the outset.
“The government relied on the notion that because it was merely pretending to run a university, it could not have knowingly entered into the contract even though it took (and retained) the money paid by Mr. Ravi to provide services,” the court wrote. , “This makes the assertion even acceptable to the presumption required at this stage of the case, that Mr. Ravi intended to obtain the education for which he paid.” “The point of contention is that even if there is an objective and clear offer and acceptance and the acceptance is in the form of The payment is made in the form of a mutual intention, but as long as the offeror has its fingers crossed behind its back when making the offer and accepting the money.
Anna Nathanson, an attorney representing Ravi, said in a statement Press release “Farmington students and their legal team are ecstatic that the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled to allow the 600 students unfairly targeted by this fake ICE university to have their day in court.”
Michigan news media first disclose In 2019, “The University of Farmington” was a sting set up by a branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to target paid-resident student visa fraud.
ICE opened the school in southeastern Michigan in 2016. It eventually attracted about 600 students on student visas (all but one from India) and charged them about $6 million in tuition and fees.
The government claims that admissions officers and fake school officials made it clear to these foreign students that they were paying for classes and courses that didn’t exist, but the plaintiffs in the lawsuit say they were “unwitting victims” who were ripped off by a school. Framed, the school has all the trappings of being a legitimate institution.
The university has a website, a regularly updated Facebook page, and a fake history dating back to the 1950s. Records obtained by local news outlets show Farmington College is incorporated by the state of Michigan and is listed by the Accrediting Commission for Vocational Schools and Colleges. What’s more, it’s accredited by the Department of Homeland Security’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program, known as Shikha Dalmia wrote for reason 2019 is the “final official seal of approval” for foreign students seeking a U.S. education.
After the incident came to light, ICE quickly closed the school and arrested about 250 former students. Many were deported, while the rest left the country voluntarily. There was an element of callousness to the whole incident: this detroit news report After news broke that the University of Farmington was a scam, “the university’s Facebook page began posting memes,” including one featuring the Star Wars character Admiral Ackbar yelling “This is a trap.” .
reasonBilly Binion Interviewed A former Farmington student paid $15,000 in tuition and fees to the fake school. He chose to voluntarily leave the United States to maximize his chances of legally returning to the United States at some point in the future. He never got his money back.
The sting in Farmington angered civil rights groups. In 2022, 40 such groups signed a letter Calls on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate possible civil rights violations resulting from this sting operation.
“This decision is not only a legal victory, but also a moral victory,” Prudhivi Raj, a former student at the university, said in a press release after last week’s ruling. “It emphasizes that no one, not even the government, can override the basic principles of fairness and honesty.”
