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A student who claims to have been caught up in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s University of Farmington sting has filed a federal class action lawsuit seeking a tuition refund and other compensation.
Teja Ravi, a citizen of India who was living in Texas when he enrolled at the fake University of Farmington, says he paid $12,500 in 2018 to attend the online school he thought would earn him a master’s degree in information technology.
He never got an education – the agency revealed in January 2019 that the entire operation had been a farce intended to catch immigration violators – and never got his money back.
By the time ICE officials announced the University of Farmington operation was a hoax, roughly 600 students had been enrolled. Ravi is seeking the court’s approval to represent all eligible Class Members from that pool in a class action lawsuit aimed at getting their tuition refunded, other costs and damages paid.
The goal of the University of Farmington sting was to catch foreign nationals trying to extend their student visas by unlawful means – by enrolling in a fake school to cheat the system into letting them stay in the U.S. for an education they were not actually getting.
Homeland Security Investigations officers working for ICE set up a virtual school, with an office in Michigan and a considerable online presence, complete with a website Ravi and his lawyer claims was so convincing “it was virtually impossible for a prospective student to differentiate the university from a legitimate one,” the class action lawsuit states.
The site was so complete it “went so far as to have bad weather alerts for students,” the lawsuit says.
Immigration officials posed as university recruiters to get foreign students to apply, then enlisted some of those students to act as recruiters to bring in hundreds of others. Eventually, eight alleged recruiters were arrested and charged.
The government “went to great lengths” to perpetrate the University of Farmington fraud, the class action lawsuit says. It registered the “school” with the state of Michigan and the national Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges and listed it on an official ICE website as being approved for the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.
Once enrolled, students communicated with what they thought were university officials via email. When class schedules that were promised but never sent to the students prompted some to question what was happening, the immigration agents put them off.
“A university official advised [Ravi] not worry about it as that was not an issue,” according to the class action lawsuit. A year later, after hearing from a friend that the whole thing was a sham, Ravi again contacted the university and “was told by a university official that the rumor was not true.”
The class action lawsuit identifies three other University of Farmington students who also paid tuition for an education they never got. Rajasekhar Reddy enrolled in Farmington in October 2017 after paying $10,000 in tuition and was unable to get a response to inquiries made after the ICE announcement in 2019, the class action lawsuit says. Naveen Kumar enrolled around May 2018, but eventually became suspicious and requested a transfer to another school, which he had to pay $1,500 to get, he said. And Pavan Sama, another Farmington student, had similar experiences and paid $15,000 in tuition, according to the class action lawsuit.
“The University of Farmington marketed itself as a university that ‘provide(s) students from throughout the world a unique educational experience,’” the class action lawsuit says, but it was a fake and there was “no way for prospective students to distinguish Farmington from a real university.”
Instead of providing an education, or in the end paying out a tuition refund, the federal agents behind the scheme “had the audacity to revoke plaintiff and class members visa status, accusing the enrollees of visa fraud, even though Plaintiff and Class members were unwitting victims of Defendant’s scheme.”
Were you or was anyone you know recruited to enroll at the University of Farmington? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
Ravi and the proposed Class Members are represented by Amy E. Norris of Norris Law PLLC.
The University of Farmington Class Action Lawsuit is Teja Ravi, et al. v. The United States of America, Case No. 1:20-cv-01237-NBF, in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
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