DETROIT – About 10 years ago, Phanideep Karnati emigrated from India to the U.S. on an H1-B visa in search of the American dream.
He became an IT engineer, was earning a masters degree at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and is today married with two sons, ages 2 and 9.
But on Monday, the 35-year-old Kentucky man appeared in shackles and a prisoner's jumpsuit in a federal courtroom in Detroit, arraigned on charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harboring aliens for profit as a recruiter for a fake university in Farmington Hills, Michigan, created by U.S. law enforcement. A not-guilty plea was entered for him by Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen, who ordered him released on a $10,000 unsecured bond.
Karnati was one of five defendants who appeared Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Detroit, and one of eight foreign nationals charged with visa fraud.
Prosecutors allege the students recruited hundreds of other students to enroll at the University of Farmington as part of a "pay to stay" scheme where foreign students could remain in the U.S. while working. The university was created by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to lure in more than 600 students, of which 130 were arrested last week on civil immigration charges.
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