Free Republic

Many American colleges and universities are considering virtual or hybrid education models for the upcoming Fall semester, due to the COVID-19 precautions. Enter the Immigration Customs and Enforcement Agency (ICE), which announced Tuesday that, if schools opt to cancel in-person classes, their international students will be forced to leave the U.S. in the midst of a global pandemic. According to statistics from the 2018-2019 school year, over 1 million international students will be impacted by the policy. Students and professors alike immediately denounced the xenophobic, harmful decision — and now, universities are using lawsuits and new learning models to fight...

If a foreign nation harbors hegemonic ambitions, tells us technological superiority is key to achieving them, and pilfers our intellectual property to accomplish it, aren’t our leaders duty-bound to do something about it?Communist China is just such a nation, posing just such a problem for America. Yet the notion that we ought, for example, to harden our schools against Chinese penetration in strategically significant areas seems to vex some of our betters.Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) highlighted this issue in an April 26 exchange with Maria Bartiromo on her “Sunday Morning Futures” program. He said that given America has …trained...

Mohamed Ahmed E A Al-Hashemi, a Qatari national in the United States on a student visa, is dead after he attacked an Arizona State Trooper on patrol in the area of Rural Road just south of the Loop 202 in Tempe.

The 130 students arrested so far in a “pay-to-stay” sting operation using a fake university face only civil immigration charges, according to media reports. “We have arrested 130 foreign nationals on civil immigration charges,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Carissa Cutrell was quoted as telling the Detroit Free Press on Thursday. She added that more of them could be arrested. Those students who knowingly participated in scam knowing it was not a genuine academic programme face deportation. Eight people who allegedly ran the scam as recruiters of the students face criminal charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and...

U.S. intelligence officials say China is using students studying in the U.S. to steal secrets and spy on other Chinese people, according to a CNN feature published Friday. Current and former intelligence officials, lawmakers and several experts told CNN that Beijing inserts spies into the 350,000 students China sends to the U.S. every year to undermine American industries and recruit more potential spies. "We assess that China's intelligence services will exploit the openness of American society, especially academia and the scientific community, using a variety of means," according to the intelligence community's World Wide Threat Assessment released Tuesday. Multiple former...

On September 24, 2018, Yunsong Zhao was vindicated. He had done nothing illegal. The evidence against him was so weak, the judge did not let the case go to trial. He dismissed the case based on lack of evidence. From wsls.com: CHRISTIANSBURG — A judge on Monday dismissed the firearms charge against former Virginia Tech student Yunsong Zhao, saying that he didn’t believe the police officer or gun dealer who were the prosecution’s main witnesses.The evidence that Zhao, a 20-year-old Chinese national, possessed an assault weapon that is allowed only for U.S. citizens or permanent residents was too flimsy...

<p>NEW YORK – Two New York residents accused of conspiring to support ISIS and plotting to set off a pressure-cooker bomb in the city have pleaded guilty to all charges against them, federal prosecutors and New York City officials said.</p>

A University of Louisiana at Lafayette student faces a criminal mischief charge for allegedly fabricating a story about being attacked near campus Wednesday by two men who yelled ethnic slurs and then stole her wallet and hijab head covering. Khadija Altamimi, 18, was issued a misdemeanor summons for a violation of the city's criminal mischief law, which carries a penalty of up to $500 and 30 days in jail, according to Lafayette Police records released Friday. She was not booked on the charge, and no court date had been set. Altamimi could not be reached for comment on Friday. News...

An illegal immigrant from the United Arab Emirates is facing charges in Florida for illegally possessing ammunition, the U.S. United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida A. Lee Bentley, III revealed Thursday. According to a complaint, 25-year-old Hamid Mohamed Ahmed Ali Rehaif had been living at a hotel in Melbourne for 53 days, checking out each morning and checking back into the hotel each evening. He further had paid over $11,000 in cash for room fees. Rehaif admitted to investigators that he had several firearms in his possession, and had fired them at two local gun ranges, but...

America has an alphabet soup of visa programs for foreigners to choose from: B-1 for business visitors, B-2 for tourists, EB-5 for investors, F-1 for students, and so on. All are overwhelmed, loosely monitored and riddled with fraud and corruption. According to the recently unsealed federal indictment against him, sleazy Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., took it upon himself to add his own very special, crooked path to the U.S. Call it the 36DD Visa. The New York Post recounted this weekend how Menendez and his staff pressured the State Department to expedite the foreign tourist and student visa approval processes...

(CNSNews.com) – Although no group has claimed responsibility for Monday’s deadly bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon, a leading al-Qaeda ideologue last year recommended that jihadists in America include sporting events in their list of prospective terror targets.

Chicago-To-Germany Flight Diverted Because Of Unruly Passenger July 8, 2011 6:05 PM Federal agents investigate after a disruption on an international flight from Chicago to Germany that was diverted to Cleveland. (Photo provide by a passenger) Federal agents investigate after a disruption on an international flight from Chicago to Germany that was diverted to Cleveland. CHICAGO (WBBM) – Some Chicagoans have quite a story to tell about a flight from O’Hare to Frankfort, Germany that was diverted Friday to Cleveland when a passenger was found hiding in the bathroom and went ballistic when he was confronted. Joe Shulfer of Woodstock...

Theirs was a whirlwind New York City Christmas, but while true love is timeless, vacations are not. Sadly, it came time for one of the lovebirds to fly home to California, and the other, Haisong Jiang — love-struck as if Cupid hit him not with an arrow, but with a two-by-four to the head — saw his beloved to the security line at Newark Liberty International Airport. One thing led to another, and they kissed, and whatever else that kiss sealed, it certainly included his fate: to ladle out meals at some soup kitchen to work off 100 hours of...

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia is one of the largest foreign investors in the United States. Prince Alwaleed's nickname is "The Warren Buffett of the Gulf" and he is one of the world's richest people. The Prince is a private entrepreneur and an international investor. The Prince was born to Prince Talal, son of the founding King of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al Saud, and Princess Mona Al-Solh, Daughter of Lebanon's first Prime Minister. The Prince is the nephew of the Saudi Arabian King Abdullah. The Carlyle Group counts Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Alsaud of...

HOUSTON—Kobie Diallo Willaims, 36, convicted of conspiring to unlawfully possess firearms by an alien and supporting the Taliban, has been sentenced to prison, United States Attorney Tim Johnson, FBI Houston Division Special Agent in Charge Richard C. Powers and David Kris, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department's National Security Division, announced today. At a hearing today before U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr., Williams, a U.S. citizen and resident of Houston, was sentenced to 54 months imprisonment without parole and fined $5,000. Williams pleaded guilty in November 2006 to conspiring with several foreign nationals, some of whom had entered...

WASHINGTON: In the first-ever indication of its stand on H-1B visas popular among Indian professionals, the Obama administration has informed a court that the US needs this scheme to avoid "competitive disadvantage" the American companies could face otherwise. A submission in this regard was recently filed by Michael F Hertz, acting assistant attorney general, in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of three US bodies, nine individuals and two students challenging government's decision to extend from one year to 29 months the duration of foreign nationals with engineering, science and other technical degrees who can work in the...

TAMPA - A University of South Florida student charged with transporting explosives will not be released on bail, a federal judge ruled Thursday. In ruling that Youssef Megahed poses a flight risk and a danger to the community, Judge Steven D. Merryday overturned a ruling by federal magistrate, who said the defendant could be released on $200,000 bail under strict conditions. Merryday wrote ... that no conditions would stop Megahed if he "wants to blow something up or cause a disturbance. ... I am unwilling at the prospective cost of property damage, injury or death to assume he will not...

Thousands of students from Saudi Arabia are enrolling on college campuses across the United States this semester under a new educational exchange program brokered by President Bush and Saudi King Abdullah. The program will quintuple the number of Saudi students and scholars here by the academic year's end. And big, public universities from Florida to the Kansas plains are in a fierce competition for their tuition dollars. The kingdom's royal family — which is paying full scholarships for most of the 15,000 students — says the program will help stem unrest at home by schooling the country's brightest in the...

MANHATTAN, Kan. - On a recent afternoon at Kansas State University, a familiar set of late-summer rituals were under way. Piccolo and tuba players practiced their formations in clusters on the lawn, and fraternity hopefuls started Rush Week. This semester, the central Kansas agricultural powerhouse was also preparing for its first-ever celebration of Ramadan to welcome the newest members of its student body: 150 students from Saudi Arabia. This school year, college towns from Florida to Oregon will host an estimated 15,000 new Saudi students, nearly all of whom have full scholarships paid for by the Kingdom's royal family. They're...

Athorities say two Saudi men who boarded a school bus full of children and gave conflicting reasons why they were there were arrested and held without bail. Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20, were charged with misdemeanor trespassing and were jailed after a judge said Saturday she wanted more background information on them. A hearing was scheduled Tuesday. The two men arrived in the country six months ago on student visas and are enrolled at the English Language Institute at the University of South Florida. Investigators said they boarded the school bus Friday, sat down and began...