New undercover recruitments recordings expose ICE's entrapment tactics at their fake university

[thomdunn]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/10/new-undercover-recruitments-re.html

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[MeekTheGeek]

WOW!!!

A chance to study at Trump University 2.0

Now with extra Fred style discrimination. Getting to swindle immigrants out of their money AND evict them from the country, through a CON?

Mmmmm… smell the Trumpiness .

Trump’s dad must be so proud. Grinning up from wherever he is roastin… I mean resting.

[knoxblox]

Higher education should be a funded resource, regardless of citizenship (in any country). The idea that immigrants/visitors sap our resources flies in the face of the reality of skilled and educated workers improving the economy and perpetuating/passing on that higher education.

[CarlMud]

Especially since a lot of universities try to attract international students because they can charge them more but don’t have to spend all that funding on them, which supplements the regular budget.

They also tend to get guided through a confusing system by international student reps because this isn’t their native culture and language, so ICE’s assertion that these students “knew” it was fake is dubious at best.

[lizard-of-oz]

@thomdunn

they claim that the students wanted to attend a fake university and recruit other immigrants to enroll in order to deliberately cheat the system

I think this says a lot more about the people making that claim than about the students.
Apparently officials in the the US DoJ inhabit a rather sad and pitiful world.

[bluehenbear]

I can understand “stings” that appeal to greedy nature of real criminals (hey person with a warrant for your arrest, here’s a text saying you won a new 65" TV, just come by to pick it up!)

But the twisted nature of this (appealing to admirable desire and ambition of people to try and improve themselves and their situation) is particularly disturbing. The “mastermind” behind this needs to be outed and shamed.

[euansmith]

@CarlMud

…which supplements the regular budget.

We’re talking about getting a new mega-screen for the sportsball field, right?

[CarlMud]

Sometimes, though it’s usually administrator salaries. Sportsball fields only come once a…half a decade.

[Dioptase1]

@thomdunn

We don’t have any normal classes to put you in. We are just helping you maintain your status by allowing you to enroll here, but you won’t be taking any online classes, nor will you be going to any classes. Are you aware of this?"

That doesn’t seem like the best example of entrapment. The main requirement to maintain status is to attend college. Telling them they won’t be taking classes in person (or even online) seems to clarify they won’t be attending college. If you are someone with the gall (and goal) to go to college, that should be a pretty good reason to nope right out of there.

There might have been entrapment, but that part of the interaction wasn’t it.

[Shuck]

Yeah, it doesn’t really work as a sting if the people involved don’t even realize it’s supposed to be a scam.

@Dioptase1

There might have been entrapment, but that part of the interaction wasn’t it.

That’s because the entrapment had already happened. He had already been snared by the program, thought he had signed up for real classes, and was only now discovering, on follow-up, that it wasn’t the case.

That’s a pretty horrific example of entrapment. It’s like setting something up to catch car thieves, but instead you capture a bunch of people who have shown up to buy the car…

[Dioptase1]

@Shuck

That’s because the entrapment had already happened .

I don’t dispute that. But OP gives this as an example of “alleged entrapment techniques.” You think it had already happened, so even you don’t think these few lines were the actual entrapment.

[Shuck]

But it was this scheme that entrapped people, and these few lines are the evidence of that entrapment.

[Dioptase1]

Sorry, but these particular lines would be piss poor evidence of entrapment. Entrapment is enticing someone to break the law. That’s not included here. At best it can be used to show this person thought she was following the law when she signed up. But it doesn’t show how she was persuaded to sign up.

The title to the post is " New undercover recruitment recordings expose ICE’s entrapment techniques at the their fake university." So one might reasonably expect the post to describe these techniques. Maybe there’s a disconnect because “entrapment” was added to the original article title of: " Undercover ICE recordings reveal tactics of fake Farmington University"

The post even leaves out the best line from the original article that is a MUCH better indication of entrapment: "Sounding confused, the student said: “But they didn’t tell me about all this? Because I am supposed to enroll … in order to maintain my status. … Why was I not told about this?”