College entrance exams are required for admittance by most universities in the United States. Some of the most common tests include the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) for undergraduate admittance and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) for business or graduate school entry. An article published by The Imperial Valley News tells about the activities of 15 Chinese nationals who allegedly used fake passports to enable them to take standardized tests for the purpose of gaining entrance into American educational institutions.
The article states that over a four-year period of time, the Chinese nationals allegedly used fake Chinese passports to defraud the Educational Testing Services (ETS) and College Board. (Supposedly, the illegal passports were used to defraud test administrators by making them believe they were other people. In addition, the authorities assert that the defendants were allowed to take exams including the SAT, GRE and also the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).)
The authorities say the test takers used the test scores to gain entry into American colleges and universities. (This is a bad thing because if these charges are true, they circumvented the F1 Student VISA requirements. Foreigners must have a legitimate student VISA, and passport for that matter, to study in the United States.)
After a joint investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the 15 defendants were indicted by a grand jury on charges of conspiracy, counterfeiting foreign passports, mail fraud and wire fraud.
As always, these defendants are presumed innocent unless they are proven guilty in a court of law. If convicted, they will face a maximum of 35 years in prison and a possible fine of $250,000 for each count of wire and mail fraud, counterfeiting foreign passports and conspiracy. (Those are some pretty serious consequences.)
The government gets a bit testy when fraud is discovered. (Let’s just say that cheating to gain entry into both the nation’s educational and immigration systems is not the best way to get on the right side of the U.S. Government.) You can be certain that the government will do whatever it takes to protect national security and the integrity of the passport and VISA process to prevent fraudulent access.
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