A federal grand jury in the District of Vermont returned a third superseding indictment today against a Burlington man for conspiring to kidnap and kill a man in a foreign country, murder for hire, and five child pornography offenses.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Christina E. Nolan of the District of Vermont, and Resident Agent in Charge Michael Shea of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) – Burlington, Vermont, made the announcement.
Sean Fiore, 36, was charged with one count of conspiring to kidnap and murder a man in a foreign country from within the United States, one count of producing and attempting to produce child pornography, one count of conspiring to produce child pornography, and one count of receiving and attempting to receive child pornography. Fiore is also charged with using interstate commerce facilities, namely cell phones and the Internet, in the commission of murder-for-hire, and an additional count each of possession and receipt of child pornography, with which he was charged in prior indictments.
Fiore was arrested in May 2019, as part of an operation conducted by Vermont’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (VT-ICAC) and HSI, that involved executing search warrants on several residences in May 2019, based on cyber tips that were received from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Fiore is currently detained pending trial, and his initial appearance on the superseding indictment will take place before Magistrate Judge John M. Conroy in the District of Vermont on a date yet to be scheduled.
The indictment alleges that between November 2018 and April 2019, Fiore knowingly and intentionally used and caused to be used facilities of interstate and foreign commerce, namely, the Internet and cell phones, with the intent of paying someone to kidnap and murder an adult male in a foreign country. Fiore is alleged to have conspired with that person to have a male victim kidnapped, bound, tortured, and then murdered, so that a video of the torture and killing could be made. Fiore allegedly paid approximately $4,000 for the video to be made.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
The investigation was conducted by HSI. Trial Attorney Mona Sahaf of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara Masterson of the District of Vermont are prosecuting the case with the assistance of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.
The year 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the Department of Justice. Learn more about the history of our agency at www.Justice.gov/Celebrating150Years.
Q: Why did ICE fail to get consent to remove a uterus? A: Chattel law.
Praise the lord for there is no informed consent when you are considered "alien child".
Q: What do Dana Wooten, Uterus, ICE & Detroit all have in common?
Let us start my Post Traumatic Fraud Disorder regression session to see what I can claim needs to be healed, and answer this in my findings, below.
Now, I have to stand back and take pause, for the simple fact that this document is dated Fall 2010, and this whistleblower seems to have been waiting for the proper moment to come out and report this in the media.
So, after taking a few moments to tilt my head to the right, I saw Detroit.
Yes, that is correct, this whistleblower letter to our federal immigration agencies, by a registered, licensed nurse, Dawn Wooten, waited all this time to not go through the formal reporting of fraud channels, to get picked up on the news wires, about something that may or may not have happened to unnamed women, of which we have no formal testimony, affidavit, video, relative, or any other human rights and/or christian organization to protest the lack of action in the performance of experimental medical procedures on wards of the state.
I did not see Detroit just because Bethany Christian has the trafficking tiny humans contracts with ICE in Foster Care and Adoption (actually, it is only adoption, but do not say anything or they might get busted filing false claims in Medicaid), but there was no mention that it would be the State of Texas who would have jurisdiction over the women and children.
It is just a Parental Rights legal thing.
Anyway, I decided to take a deep breath to see if I could disprove my prescient visions of Detroit, where, lo and behold, I could not.
I remember that U.S. Social Forum came to Detroit, where just about no one from Detroit showed up because all the "Elected Ones" were at the Michigan Democratic Convention, where they merged with the crowd to make it look like they had lots and lots of people in their movement to set up the big event.
The 2010 US Social Forum took place in Detroit, Michigan from the June 22–26[1] in the Northwest Goldberg area.[6] More than 20,000 people attended.[8] Detroit was chosen in part because of its activism in community building resulting from the lack of support from the Federal government of the United States. Organizers hoped that half of the 15,000 participants they had predicted would be from the Midwest.[9] Organizers planned on supporting and beautifying the neighborhood. Thousands of bicycles used during the forum were to be donated to the residents afterward. Some attendees bought vacant homes that were donated to a local organization after the Forum. The Detroit Liberation Library was created from hundreds of books collected from USSF participants from all over the country and later offered throughout the city.[10] Supporters of the Forum were encouraged to create Peoples Movement Assemblies in their own communities.[6] Activists at the gathering participated in more than 1,000 self-organized workshops.[11] One of the most well attended events was a conversation between Grace Lee Boggs and Immanuel Wallerstein.[8] Thousands of Social Forum participants marched to occupy Chase Bank Detroit headquarters, resulting in a national Chase Bank official speaking with church leaders in Detroit about foreclosures.[12] Progressive religious groups played a larger role in the 2010 US Social Forum than at the 2007 event.[13]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Social_Forum
The Northwest Goldberg area is not recognized by any official City of Detroit, Wayne County or State of Michigan or the United States as a legal, authority, and neither is the Detroit Land Bank Authority.
And, that, Boys & Girls is why I shall continue to stand back and take pause on this sensational, unsubstantiated claim that looks like Wooten slept in for the last few months, or decades, depending on when they came up with it (i.e. Fall 2010), because all I see is another #coloredrevolution psyoptic to cover up the trafficking of tiny humans, as we all know, started in Detroit.
But wait!
I must complete my Post Traumatic Fraud Disorder therapy by documenting that I know for a fact that Fat Ass used to be all up in this because I watched his Fat Ass, and I did not wait years, months nor decades to formally report his activities because I documented in real time that he, and all of his co-conspirators were being really uber mean to my Sweetie and if you do not believe me, you will just have to ask Rashida Tlaib to verify every single work I have just archived in the formal, public record, for decades.
The horrors are going to be with the children, because no one wants to talk about that, which is why we have the Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide cloaking the tale of Parental Rights.
This is also an attempt to cloak the origins of DACA and DAPA, for they are policy, and not law, just like ICPC, but no one cares for there are trillions involved in the industry of trafficking tiny humans in the name of god.
I shall assert that these hysterectomies may have been performed on those under the age of consent. I shall also aver that the reason why this "whistleblower" letter was presented in such a public fashion was because the Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide in not registered, nor incorporated, to possess any legal authority to represent the women who may or may not have been victim to such scientifically repugnant procedures.
Were these uterus sold for research or hosting of tiny humans?
Are they cloaking a drug in vitro ratline?
Could it be they were extracting teeny tiny humans for lab ratting?
Uterus transplantation (UTx) is now a possible approach for women with absolute uterine factor infertility to deliver a child, following the first successful delivery by Brännström et al. in Sweden in September 2014. This remarkable achievement attracted major attention worldwide and caused many countries to prepare for UTx, including countries in Asia. To date, three groups have performed UTx in humans in Asia, and many others are aiming for the clinical application of UTx with accumulation of basic experimental data. Therefore, it is likely that UTx will expand rapidly in Asia in the near future, although this will depend on ethical, social and religious views in each country. With this background, herein we summarize the current progress of UTx in East, Southeast and South Asia, with the purpose of increasing understanding of the current status of basic and clinical UTx research in each country and sharing progress and knowledge to ensure future development of UTx research in Asia.
The world will never know unless DHS Inspector General opens an investigation...or has he......?
Whistleblower Policy Marguerite Casey Foundation is committed to being an organization conducive to open discussion of our business practices. Our whistleblower policy applies to all Foundation employees, board members, and paid consultants. If you have reason to believe that this person has violated MCF’s policies or is in violation of a state or federal statute or regulation, you are encouraged to report your concerns by emailing whistleblower@caseygrants.org. Your email will be directed to the President & CEO, Board Chair, and the Foundation’s external ombudsperson. It is the Foundation’s policy to protect you from unlawful retaliation or discrimination by anyone affiliated with the Foundation as a result of your notifying either the Foundation when you have reason to believe the Foundation’s actions violate the law. The Foundation’s findings and actions will, to the extent possible, be communicated back to you. While the Foundation endeavors to maintain your confidentiality in the event you make such a report, your identity may have to be disclosed to conduct a thorough investigation, to comply with the law, or to provide accused individuals their legal rights to defense. This policy prevents you from being subject to retaliatory action by the Foundation or any of its staff members if you report information where you have a reasonable good faith belief that the information discloses: A violation of a state or federal statute; A violation of a state or federal rule or regulation; or With respect to employee safety or health, unsafe working conditions or work practices at the Foundation. The Foundation will not: Make, adopt, or enforce any rule, regulation, or policy preventing you from being a whistleblower; Retaliate against you as a whistleblower; Retaliate against you for refusing to participate in an activity that would result in a violation of a state or federal statute, or a violation or noncompliance with a state or federal rule or regulation; and Retaliate against you for having exercised your rights as a whistleblower in any former employment.
This is about modern day human trafficking because the USCCB needs these contracts and they already have the new resegregation trafficking tiny humans models
The #coloredrevolution just got kicked up a notch.
Washington, DC – Yesterday, in Ramos v. Wolf, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated an existing preliminary injunction or pause of the Trump Administration’s attempt to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for over 200,000 individuals living legally in the United States. Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, and Sean Callahan, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, issued the following statement: “The Ninth Circuit’s decision continues a heartbreaking path of uncertainty and fear for hundreds of thousands of TPS recipients needlessly put into motion by the Trump Administration. As detailed in our extensive work in Central America and the Caribbean, TPS countries such as El Salvador and Haiti cannot adequately handle the return of TPS recipients and their families. The spread of COVID-19 has only made conditions worse. Today's decision will fragment American families, leaving, for example, over 192,000 U.S. citizen children of Salvadoran TPS recipients without their parents and with uncertain futures. “Our nation must not turn its back on TPS recipients and their families; they too are children of God. We stand in solidarity with TPS recipients, who are here and have been living and working in the United States legally, and we will continue to do so with them in their countries of origin. “We renew our call for the U.S. Senate to take up the American Dream and Promise Act, which the House passed last year. We stand ready to support such efforts. Without action by Congress, however, recipients’ lives will be upended. Congress must act to ensure that such catastrophic human consequences do not occur.”
To learn more about Temporary Protected Status, please see the Justice for Immigrants website.
On the one-year anniversary of the introduction of the Keep Families Together Act, the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship announced that it will be investigating the Administration's implementation of the "Remain in Mexico" immigration policy
Washington, D.C. – Today, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), along with Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Subcommittee Members Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Veronica Escobar (D-TX), Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), Joe Neguse (D-CO), Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), and Lou Correa (D-CA), announced the start of an investigation into how the Administration’s "zero tolerance" immigration policy has morphed into a policy whereby refugees and asylum seekers are being kept in Mexico indefinitely and without due process or access to counsel. That is because the children are placed under foreign corporations like Bethany Christian to be processed through foster care to be fast tracked through adoption, which means they have legal counsel. The announcement comes on the one-year anniversary of the introduction of the Keep Families Together Act, which came in response to the Trump Administration’s family separation policy that led to over five thousand children being separated from their families upon entry into the United States....and placed in Foster Care. The letter, sent to Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf, demands the Department turn over any information regarding the development and execution of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the "Remain in Mexico" policy, a.k.a. Foster Care which threatens the health and safety of legitimate asylum seekers—including women, children, and families.
In their letter, the Members wrote, "The policy has nearly eliminated the already scarce due process protections available to asylum-seekers—such as access to counsel—further reducing the likelihood that legitimate asylum-seekers can obtain asylum.... which is called Adoption. Moreover, MPP forces women, children, and families to remain in areas that the federal government recognizes as especially unsafe....where christian child welfare NGOs are providing relief like Catholic Charities. As of today, there are 31 active travel advisories for Mexico, including 5 warnings in which the State Department explicitly advises Americans against travel....because the people are tired of their kid being snatched and sold through Foster Care and Adoption. It is difficult to understand why this administration is sending children and families to areas where they will face certain harm." It is difficult to understand because the Committee ha no clue that Foster Care and Adoption is the residual of the peculiar institution of trafficking tiny humans multi-trillion dollar industry. Where is HHS?
The U.S. House Oversight Committee on the 2020 Census to get an accurate account, but everyone has failed on two fronts, the first being labeling of the variable of race.
Now, I am going to have to have someone provide me with the operationalization of the tools for measurement of race.
I was always told race was determined by the enumerator, perOMB Directive 15 but I ended up finding the legal tool for it.
Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
DIRECTIVE NO. 15
Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics
and Administrative Reporting
(as adopted on May 12, 1977)
This Directive provides standard classifications for record keeping, collection, and presentation of data on race and ethnicity in Federal program administrative reporting and statistical activities. These classifications should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature, nor should they be viewed as determinants of eligibility for participation in any Federal program. They have been developed in response to needs expressed by both the executive branch and the Congress to provide for the collection and use of compatible, nonduplicated, exchangeable racial and ethnic data by Federal agencies.
1. Definitions
The basic racial and ethnic categories for Federal statistics and program administrative reporting are defined as follows:
American Indian or Alaskan Native. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North America, and who maintains cultural identification through tribal affiliation or community recognition.
Asian or Pacific Islander. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, or the Pacific Islands. This area includes, for example, China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippine Islands, and Samoa.
Black. A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.
Hispanic. A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.
White. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East.
2. Utilization for Record keeping and Reporting
To provide flexibility, it is preferable to collect data on race and ethnicity separately. If separate race and ethnic categories are used, the minimum designations are:
Race:
-- American Indian or Alaskan Native
--Asian or Pacific Islander
--Black
--White
Ethnicity:
--Hispanic origin
--Not of Hispanic origin
When race and ethnicity are collected separately, the number of White and Black persons who are Hispanic must be identifiable, and capable of being reported in that category.
If a combined format is used to collect racial and ethnic data, the minimum acceptable categories are:
--American Indian or Alaskan Native
--Asian or Pacific Islander
--Black, not of Hispanic origin
--Hispanic
--White, not of Hispanic origin.
The category which most closely reflects the individual's recognition in his community should be used for purposes of reporting on persons who are of mixed racial and/or ethnic origins.
In no case should the provisions of this Directive be construed to limit the collection of data to the categories described above. However, any reporting required which uses more detail shall be organized in such a way that the additional categories can be aggregated into these basic racial/ethnic categories.
This was about the same time the term "African-Americans" came to be fashionable.
The African-Americans, a term Jesse Jackson coined, needs to told as his tale.
If Africa is a continent, and the United States is a nation, does that mean African Americans have dual citizenship or are these votes disqualified under Voter ID laws? Not everyone from the continent of Africa is of the darker persuasion.
Not everyone of the darker persuasion is from Africa.
If Colored Person A procreates with Colored Person B, producing Colored Offspring X; and, Colored Person C procreates with Colored Person D, producing Colored Offspring Y; where, Colored Offspring X and Colored Offspring Y procreate to produce Colored Offspring XY, does the zygote qualify for reparations?
Here is an example of law that allows the U.S. to label one, based upon the status of the mother, Partus Sequitur Ventrum, more readily understood as the one-drop rule of property ownership under the law of chattels.
Every local registrar may, as soon as practicable, have such registration certificate made by or for each person in his district who so desires, born before June fourteen, nineteen hundred and twelve, for whom he has not on file a registration certificate, or a birth certificate.
2. It shall be a felony for any person wilfully or knowingly to make a registration certificate false as to color or race. The wilful making of a false registration or birth certificate shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for one year.
3. For each registration certificate properly made and returned to the State Registrar, the local registrar returning the same shall be entitled to a fee of twenty-five cents, to be paid by the registrant. Application for registration and for transcript may be made direct to the State Registrar, who may retain the fee for expenses of his office.
4. No marriage license shall be granted until the clerk or deputy clerk has reasonable assurance that the statements as to color of both man and woman are correct.
If there is reasonable cause to disbelieve that applicants are of pure white race, when that fact is stated, the clerk or deputy clerk shall withhold the granting of the license until satisfactory proof is produced that both applicants are "white persons" as provided for in this act.
The clerk or deputy clerk shall use the same care to assure himself that both applicants are colored, when that fact is claimed.
5. It shall hereafter be unlawful for any white person in this State to marry any save a white person, or a person with no other admixture of blood than white and American Indian. For the purpose of this act, the term "white person" shall apply only to the person who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons. All laws heretofore passed and now in effect regarding the intermarriage of white and colored persons shall apply to marriages prohibited by this act.
6. For carrying out the purposes of this act and to provide the necessary clerical assistance, postage and other expenses of the State Registrar of Vital Statistics, twenty per cent of the fees received by local registrars under this act shall be paid to the State Bureau of Vital Statistics, which may be expended by the said bureau for the purposes of this act.
7. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent with this act are, to the extent of such inconsistency, hereby repealed.
If one is "not colored", does that make them invisible, and if they are invisible, how can you count them?
FUN FACT! ABSENTEE BALLOTS ARE SUBJECT TO THE SAME CORPORATE PARENTAL RIGHT LAWS
I have a better suggestion to get a better count of our U.S. population.
How about answering this question:
Now, what is the citizenship of the foster kid?
So, if a child is a citizen of Guatemala crosses the Mexican-U.S. Border, to be taken into U.S. custody and placed under a privatized, state contracted child placing agency like Bethany Christian, a Michigan licensed business entity, which is under the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a foreign corporation, where that child is processed through the policy, not law, like DACA & DAPA, of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children under the legal aegis of the contracting state Child Placing Agency, qualifying the child for Targeted Case Management billing reimbursement of Medicaid for the purposes of concurrent case planning to fast track Termination of Parental Rights for adoption, which includes a new identity and an issued Social Security Number, what is the citizenship of that child and what happens with the original identity?
So, instead of listening to the dribbled of ignorance of this hearing, I would like to inform "The Elected Ones" that we did not count the babies until the early 20th Century, but do not tell them that because the lord was the keeper of the record.
The church record of the birth, not the certificate.
Then, no one is talking about the live and dead births certificates.
No one is talking about Foster Care and Adoption.
No one is talking about those fake identities after termination of parental rights over the children, hailing from "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth).
Here is a synoptic overview on how they child welfare industry can multiple a child's identity to maximize revenues".
So, if the U.S. conjures up their own laws on how to count "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth), will it be challenged by the Holy See because it does not have any legal congruency, outside the U.S.?
That would be fun!
Again, to keep with my ad nauseum theme of coming up with new and improved ways of trying to get people to understand that the residuals of the peculiar institution are alive and thriving for the simple fact that slavery was never, ever abolished, I shall close out this round of castigation with one of my favorite taglines.
#Time2AuditGod
Who owns the child because corporations are people, too.
The children are coming to Michigan because we have the contracts.
How can one use DNA to establish paternity, when the child is adopted?
Just thought I would throw that out there when trying to figure out the citizenship of children under the aegis of a private, foreign Foster Care Agency.
Houston – The U.S. government on Monday launched a pilot program to collect DNA from people in immigration custody and submit it to the FBI, with plans to expand nationwide.
In Detroit, people as young as 14 will be subject to DNA collection.
The information would go into a massive criminal database run by the FBI, where it would be held indefinitely. A memo outlining the program published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security said U.S. citizens and permanent residents holding a “green card” who are detained could be subject to DNA testing, as well as asylum seekers and people entering the country without authorization. Refusing to submit DNA could lead to a misdemeanor criminal charge, the document said.
Immigrant advocates and privacy experts have raised alarms and questioned whether data collected to stop criminal activity could instead be used for surveillance.
The DHS memo acknowledged that the DNA its agents collect may not be immediately useful. Agents plan to take saliva swabs of detained people, then mail them to the FBI. By the time the results are processed, the memo said, the people in question may have already been released, deported or transferred to another federal agency.
Stephen Kang, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, questioned whether the U.S. was creating “a DNA bank of immigrants that have come through custody for no clear reason.”
Starting Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will collect swabs from people apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol at the Canadian border in or near Detroit, as well as people detained at the official port of entry at Eagle Pass, Texas, across from Piedras Negras, Mexico. CBP said its pilot program will last 90 days.
The memo said agents will not take DNA from people entering the country legally or being held for further screening without being placed into detention.
CBP has wrongly accused American citizens in the past of entering the country illegally. An 18-year-old born in Texas was held for more than three weeks last year.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will designate one of its jails for pilot testing.
The case provides a base for international discussion on citizenship and how a birth is certified, not just registered.
The reason why this is of such importance is to establish which jurisdiction of the law of the land.
Now, apply the question of citizenship of a child who has been placed in state custody through a federal transfer to a foreign contracted, private corporation, to be adopted out.
Supreme Court of Canada Building
Decision
Date: December 19, 2019
Neutral Citation: 2019 SCC 65
Breakdown of the decision:
Majority: Chief Justice Wagner and Justices Moldaver, Gascon, Côté, Brown, Rowe, and Martin dismissed the appeal
Concurring: Justices Rosalie Silberman Abella and Andromache Karakatsanis agreed that the Registrar’s decision was unreasonable and was rightly quashed
On appeal from the Federal Court of Appeal
Case information (37748)
Webcast of hearing
Lower court rulings:
Decision (Registrar of Citizenship, not available online)
Judicial review (Federal Court of Canada)
Appeal (Federal Court of Appeal)
Explore the Court
Judges of the Court
Role of the Court
Visit the Court
A person born in Canada to parents who were undercover Russian spies is a Canadian citizen, the Supreme Court has ruled.
Mr. Vavilov was born in Toronto in 1994. In 2010, his parents were arrested for spying in the United States, where they were living. Mr. Vavilov learned then that his parents had been undercover Russian spies his whole life. The United States sent the parents back to Russia as part of a spy exchange.
Mr. Vavilov tried to renew his Canadian passport. He was rejected twice. Officials said he needed proof he was Canadian, and his birth certificate wasn’t enough. He needed a certificate of Canadian citizenship. He got this and applied again. But he still didn’t get a passport. Instead, he got a letter from the Registrar of Citizenship. The Registrar makes the final decision on who is a Canadian citizen. The letter said giving Mr. Vavilov the certificate of citizenship was a mistake and that he was not a Canadian citizen.
The Registrar’s decision was based on her view of the Citizenship Act. The general rule is that anyone born in Canada is a Canadian citizen. But there is an exception. This exception applies to a child of “a diplomatic or consular officer or other representative or employee in Canada of a foreign government.” If neither parent is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, the child won’t be a citizen. The Registrar said the exception applied in Mr. Vavilov’s case.
The Registrar relied on a report for her decision. The report was written by a junior analyst. The analyst noted there was no definition of “other representative or employee in Canada of a foreign government” in the Act. But she said it could include undercover spies. The analyst recommended the Registrar cancel Mr. Vavilov’s certificate of citizenship.
Mr. Vavilov asked the Federal Court to review the Registrar’s decision. The Federal Court ruled for the Registrar. It said the decision was “correct.” The Federal Court of Appeal ruled for Mr. Vavilov. It said the decision was “unreasonable” and quashed (canceled) it. (To better understand what “correct” and “unreasonable” mean here, read the “Case Law in Brief” on the Standard of Review.)
All the judges at the Supreme Court said the Registrar’s decision was “unreasonable” and that the Federal Court of Appeal was right to quash it. They said Mr. Vavilov was a Canadian citizen.
The judges said the Registrar didn’t justify her view of the law. They said she didn’t properly consider lawmakers’ debates, court cases, the text of the Citizenship Act, and international law. These sources showed that the exception was only meant to apply to people who had diplomatic “privileges and immunities.”
Citizens have to follow all their country’s rules. For example, Canadian citizens have to pay Canadian taxes and obey Canadian laws. But people working for foreign governments, like at embassies or consulates, don’t always have to. They may have “privileges and immunities.” These are like exceptions to the rules that citizens have to follow. They are meant to make sure one country can’t meddle in another country’s foreign policy through its officials. The officials need the privileges and immunities to do their jobs properly. That’s why diplomats and other foreign representatives to Canada can’t become Canadian citizens.
The majority said it didn’t matter that Mr. Vavilov’s parents were working for a foreign state. What mattered was whether they had privileges and immunities. They didn’t. That meant the exception didn’t apply to Mr. Vavilov.
Normally, if a court finds an administrative decision unreasonable, it will send it back to the decision-maker to try again. In this case, the majority said it wouldn’t be useful to do that. Mr. Vavilov had already brought up all these issues and nothing changed the Registrar’s mind. The judges said that Mr. Vavilov was a Canadian citizen.
This case was one of three cases known as the “administrative law trilogy.” (The other two cases, decided in Bell Canada v. Canada (Attorney General), were about Super Bowl ads.) Vavilov and the Super Bowl ad cases were about very different issues. But they all dealt with an area of administrative law called “standard of review.” To learn more about this (and to better understand the Court’s reasons in this case), read the “Case Law in Brief” on the Standard of Review.
ICE has arrested about 250 students who were enrolled at a fake university in Farmington Hills set up by ICE to lure in students.
About 90 additional foreign students of a fake university in metro Detroit created by the Department of Homeland Security have been arrested in recent months.
A total of about 250 students have now been arrested since January on immigration violations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of a sting operation by federal agents who enticed foreign-born students, mostly from India, to attend the school that marketed itself as offering graduate programs in technology and computer studies, according to ICE officials.
Many of those arrested have been deported to India while others are contesting their removals. One has been allowed to stay after being granted lawful permanent resident status by an immigration judge.
The students had arrived legally in the U.S. on student visas, but since the University of Farmington was later revealed to be a creation of federal agents, they lost their immigration status after it was shut down in January. The school was located on Northwestern Highway near 13 Mile Road in Farmington Hills and staffed with undercover agents posing as university officials.
Out of the approximately 250 students arrested on administrative charges, "nearly 80% were granted voluntary departure and departed the United States," the Detroit office of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) told the Free Press in a statement Tuesday.
Out of the remaining 20%, about half of them have received a final order of removal; some of them were ordered removed by an immigration judge, and others "were given an expedited removal by U.S. Customs and Border Protection," said HSI Detroit.
['It was a pleasure speaking with you': Emails reveal how university portrayed itself to potential students. Read more here.]
The remaining 10% "have either filed for some sort of relief or are contesting their removals with Executive Office for Immigration Review," said HSI Detroit.
ICE said in March that 161 students had been arrested, which has now increased to about 250; the 250 arrests took place from January to July, said an ICE spokesperson.
Meanwhile, seven of the eight recruiters who were criminally charged for trying to recruit students have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced in Detroit, including Prem Rampeesa, 27, last week. The remaining one is to be sentenced in January.
Attorneys for the students arrested said they were unfairly trapped by the U.S. government since the Department of Homeland Security had said on its website that the university was legitimate. An accreditation agency that was working with the U.S. on its sting operation also listed the university as legitimate.
There were more than 600 students enrolled at the university, which was created a few years ago by federal law enforcement officials with ICE. Records filed with the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) show that the University of Farmington was incorporated in January 2016.
Many of the students had enrolled with the university through a program known as Curricular Practical Training (CPT), which allows students to work in the U.S through a F-1 visa program for foreign students. Some had transferred to the University of Farmington from other schools that had lost accreditation, which means they would no longer be in immigration status and allowed to remain in the U.S.
Emails obtained by the Free Press earlier this year showed how the fake university attracted students to the university, which cost about $12,000 on average in tuition and fees per year.
The U.S. "trapped the vulnerable people who just wanted to maintain (legal immigration) status," Rahul Reddy, a Texas attorney who represented or advised some of the students arrested, told the Free Press this week. "They preyed upon on them."
The fake university is believed to have collected millions of dollars from the unsuspecting students. An email from the university's president, named Ali Milani, told students that graduate programs' tuition is $2,500 per quarter and the average cost is $1,000 per month.
"They made a lot of money," Reddy said of the U.S. government.
Reddy said that two of the students who were sent back to India through a voluntary departure agreement with ICE were denied entry into the U.S. after they tried to reenter this year.
No one has filed a lawsuit or claim against the U.S. government for collecting the money or for allegedly entrapping the students.
Attorneys for ICE and the Department of Justice maintain that the students should have known it was not a legitimate university because it did not have classes in a physical location. Some CPT programs have classes combined with work programs at companies.
"Their true intent could not be clearer," Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Helms wrote in a sentencing memo this month for Rampeesa, one of the eight recruiters, of the hundreds of students enrolled. "While 'enrolled' at the University, one hundred percent of the foreign citizen students never spent a single second in a classroom. If it were truly about obtaining an education, the University would not have been able to attract anyone, because it had no teachers, classes, or educational services."
In the memo, federal prosecutor Baker said the case raises questions about the U.S. "foreign-student visa program."
Baker wrote that "immigration and visa programs have been hot-button topics in the United States for years and national scrutiny has only been increasing. Fairly or unfairly, Rampeesa’s conduct casts a shadow on the foreign-student visa program in general, and it raises questions as to whether the potential for abuse threatens to outweigh the benefits."
Reddy said, though, that in some cases, students who transferred out from the University of Farmington after realizing they didn't have classes on-site, were still arrested.
Rampeesa was sentenced Nov, 19 to one year in prison by Judge Gershwin Drain of U.S. District Court in Detroit. With time already served of 295 days, he should be out in about two to three months, and will then be deported to India, said his attorney Wanda Cal. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harbor aliens for profit.
Detroit ICE spokesman Khaalid Walls said the other recruiters sentenced so far are Barath Kakireddy, 29, of Lake Mary, Florida, 18 months; Suresh Kandala, 31, of Culpeper, Virginia, 18 months; Santosh Sama, 28, of Fremont, California, 24 months; Avinash Thakkallapally, 28, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 15 months; Aswanth Nune, 26, of Atlanta, Georgia, 12 months; Naveen Prathipati, 26, of Dallas, Texas, 12 months.
Phanideep Karnati, 35, of Louisville, Kentucky, is to be sentenced in January.
In court, Rampeesa's attorney, Cal, said his client had no criminal record and came from a rural background in India.
He was trying to "help his family back home," Cal said before Judge Drain. "My client is very remorseful. He is really a good person caught up in a bad situation."
Rampeesa arrived in the U.S. legally a few years ago on a student visa and earned in 2016 a master's degree in computer science at Northwestern Polytechnic University. But the university later lost its accreditation, which put his immigration status in jeopardy. He had spent $40,000 in tuition and fees for his studies at the university.
"He was desperate to find a way to stay in the United States," Rampeesa's attorney, Cal, wrote in his sentencing memo. He wanted to get a Ph.D. in computer science, she said.
Rampeesa then met Sama, who recruited him to attend the University of Farmington and told him he could get tuition credits if he recruited other students, Cal said.
Sama and Rampeesa were working with people they thought were university officials, but were actually undercover agents for the Department of Homeland Security.
"My client has no other criminal history, not even a traffic ticket," Cal said in court last week.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Baker said in court that Rampeesa was "aware it was completely fake," that "it was just for maintaining status."
"He chose the University of Farmington for a reason," Baker said of Rampeesa.
In calling for a sentence of 24 to 30 months, Baker said: "It's important to send a message ... this type of crime will not be tolerated."
Accompanying Baker in the court last week was Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet, who helped prosecute the case.
Judge Drain sentenced him to 1 year, but he will be released in two to three months because of time served, and then deported.
Drain said of Rampeesa: "You don't have any criminal history. ... I don't think you're a danger to the public."
Rampeesa received a shorter sentence than Sama because he was not recruiting other students for cash, but for tuition credits provided by the university, Judge Drain said.
Rampeesa wrote a letter to the court pleading for leniency that was read before the judge. A Telugu-speaking translator was at his side in court, translating the courtroom proceedings. Most of the students were from Telugu-speaking regions of India in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
He said he was trying in the U.S. after his previous university's loss of accreditation made his master's degree "worthless."
"I am ashamed," Rampeesa wrote. "I made a very bad decision" to recruit students that "bought shame to my family name."
