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US immigration police broke Facebook rules with fake profiles for college…
US immigration police broke Facebook rules with fake profiles for college sting
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) violated Facebook policy by creating fake social media profiles tied to the University of Farmington
A sham university it created to identify people committing immigration fraud
More than 600 students, nearly all Indian citizens, were caught up in the scheme
172 students have been arrested for civil immigration violations in the case.
Created by the nation’s second largest federal investigative agency, Ice’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division.
Facebook said:
Law enforcement authorities, like everyone else, are required to use their real names on Facebook
Operating fake accounts is not allowed, and we will act on any violating accounts
Facebook removed the University of Farmington accounts shortly after being contacted by the Guardian
Starting in 2015, undercover agents built the Michigan school’s facade, with a fake website, government documents that confirmed it was eligible to enroll foreign students
Carey Ferrante, who did not list any link to the school but had interactions with persons interested in it
A suspicious Facebook accounts linked the college’s alleged president, Ali “AJ” Milani had a 51-person friend list that was mostly people from south Asia
it was confirmed the government owned Ali “AJ” Milani and Carey Ferrante’s accounts.
In a January indictment, the government accused students of enrolling in the school to stay in the country illegally, knowing that the institution was a sham
Dave Maass, investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said there were many ways law enforcement can create fake accounts
He said Facebook should be more transparent by posting a list of law enforcement entities caught violating the site’s policy by using fake accounts.
These Facebook profiles were just one part of the University of Farmington’s illusion
The school was listed as legitimate in government documents
the school’s physical address was an office with a University of Farmington logo mounted on the wall
The government said that each student knew that the University’s program was not approved
But lawyers said that they are kids and they’ve never had a traffic offense before. They are relatively new to the country and from small towns back in India.
Some of the students she spoke to attempted to transfer out of the school when they realized classes were not being held, but couldn’t get a school official to approve the transfer
Others were suspicious about the lack of classes, she said, but had more of a “wait and see” mentality.