Tejinder Singh – AHN News Correspondent
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The United States reiterated its focus on “visa fraud” in the ongoing investigation into Tri-Valley University while the subject was highlighted during high-level visits from Indian officials to the U.S.
The latest efforts of Sushmita Thomas, Indian Consul General in San Francisco, on Wednesday resulted in the US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) de-tagging three more Indian students out of total 18, bringing the number to five.
Noting that ICE has returned the passport of these three students along with two others from whom radio tags were removed last week, Thomas elaborated that the students were taken to ICE by two immigration attorneys.
Both of the attorneys, Kalpana Peddibhotla and Manpreet Gahra, are from the South Asian Bar Association, which is cooperating with the Consulate to provide free legal aid for the Tri Valley students.
There has been a flurry of diplomatic activities over the last weeks, as more than 1,500 students of Indian origin await results of the ongoing investigation by the Department of Homeland Security into the murky waters of Tri-Valley University.
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao met with U.S. Undersecretary for political affairs William Burn and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week.
Commenting on the meetings, Heide Bronke Fulton, director of the State Department’s Office of Press Relations, told All Headline News, “During these discussions the issue of Tri-Valley University was raised. This is the issue that the United States government takes very seriously. Our Department of Homeland Security is leading the investigation into the situation and has established a website to assist all students who are affected by the issue of fraud that has risen.”
Asked to sum up her advise to the affected students, Indian Foreign Secretary Rao told AHN, “To stay in touch with the embassy and the consulates —– to reach out to the embassy and the consulates and not to be afraid to reach out to embassy and consulates —- we are there to help you to try to seek a solution to your problems and to their parents back home similar message —- that we would do our best to help them and to take up their case with the US authorities —- we are there to help Indian citizens —- that is the primary responsibility and primary work of any diplomatic establishment abroad.”
Addressing journalists on Wednesday, PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman, said, “We will work as cooperatively as we can with the Indian government as we move ahead here, but it’s hard to know exactly what is possible because the matter is still under investigation.”
Commenting on the phone conversation between Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the weekend, Crowley said, “India has made the point, and we understand it fully, that students caught up in this, the risk is that they’ll lose a year of schooling and go through great inconvenience as this matter is being investigated. We do understand that and we have pledged our cooperation.”
During the State Department briefing Crowley said, “But we do recognize that there’s – are strong indications of visa fraud, and we don’t know who is involved, we don’t know how they got involved, but this has to be investigated fully, and we will do that.”
Over the weekend visiting Indian minister Krishna told journalists in New York, “We would like to assure that we have taken attempt with the authorities in the United States at the highest level and we have been assured that the students in the Tri-Valley – so called university will be dealt in all fairness – just not legalistically but taking into on the basis of humanitarian situations.”
“Our consul general in San Francisco has already provided legal assistance to some of these affected students,” added Krishna.
Indian Consul General Thomas told AHN, “We have been speaking to ICE repeatedly regularly – in fact we have been speaking to their principal chief investigator in this case and we have finally got them to agree that they would be dealing with this in a very humanitarian manner – not just a legalistical manner – and that in the cases where they are convinced that the students were not guilty – they would be willing to help them -either leave for India and then come back without prejudice or allow them to transfer to other universities and if their transfers get accepted or allow them a reinstatement of their visas if the universities from where they originally transferred accept them back.”
Calling the process “a long haul,” Thomas said, “I feel definitely it would be much longer than that–six to seven months or eight months but definitely there is a lot of hope and a lot of student whom we can possibly help to reinstate themselves and to get back to their studies.”
Over the weekend, a group of 25 students along with Mohan Nannapaneni, secretary of the Telgu Association of North American (TANA), met with Krishna to apprise him of the situation.
After the meeting, Nannapaneni told AHN, “We had a very lengthy meeting. The foreign affairs minister and the external affairs secretary listened to our concerns very carefully and a lot of students came and they gave a very clear description of their problems that they are going through.”
“Until we met the minister they didn’t even have an idea what exactly was going on here and the ministry and the government – they did not understand the urgency of this issue – now at least we have a feeling that they know the urgency of the issue and they are going to work quickly on it,” hoped Nannapaneni.
Praising TANA for supporting the students in distress, the Indian Consul General urged other community organizations to come forward with their resources to help these students.
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