Threat of Student Visa Fraud makes U.S. Universities Prime Target of Foreign Espionage Activity

On Wednesday, May 25th, Reuters news agency released an investigative report on the academic fraudulence by international Chinese students at American universities. Their report, specifically outlining the fraud carried out by thirty Chinese students at the University of Iowa (UI), discusses the unique business system enabling Chinese students to pay for transcripts, essays, and other certificates necessary to enter into American universities as well as succeed in them.

The report follows a Chinese “tutoring firm,” Transcend, as well as a specific foreign national that was found to have manufactured a false transcript and other academic documents using the firm. In addition to this specific case, the report discussed how the university’s transcript evaluators failed to catch the fraudulent behavior because there are only four to five staff members available to review thousands of applications.

Reuters stated that the university caught these Chinese students after ProctorU, the online exam service, found discrepancies between the facial features of those taking the online exams and the students listed as taking the exams.

The Reuter’s piece, as well as the falsification of documents by Chinese international students, is not a novel issue among American universities, but has instead been a long standing issue regarding immigration and national security.

In May of 2013, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) found in a study that fifty-seven percent of Chinese students had assistance with the college and/or student visa application processes. The association also found that it was “not uncommon for third parties, including agents, to forge academic credentials and letters of recommendation for students applying to overseas schools.”

In the last ten years, the number of Chinese students at American universities has tripled to around 200,000. During this time, the Chinese Ministry of Education approved approximately 450 agencies that offer support to students wishing to study overseas. With China being far and away the leading “sending country” of international students to the United States, concerns regarding the authenticity of their international students and the agencies enlisted to help them, helps raise questions about the US immigration system as a whole.

The student visa process is, and has been, largely dependent upon the credentials the students give the universities and government. It is thus extremely important that the schools carefully evaluate the background of the foreign nationals they wish to admit. If schools, such as the University of Iowa, dole out the task to very few people, then the evaluation of these students, their transcripts, and their legitimacy become difficult to confirm. Ultimately, the school’s confirmation of legitimacy is essential in the processing of any student-visa application and a component of review the State Department heavily relies upon.

However, the NACAC report found that many universities don’t employ review practices thorough enough to verify Chinese credentials. Much like the evaluation practice at UI, other American universities fail to provide enough oversight in their review process, which allows Chinese students to pay tutor agencies to aid them in their admittance process.

Coinciding with these lax admittance policies is the threat that stems from international students conducting espionage activities on United States’ campuses.

In an April 2012 Bloomberg article, the former deputy director of FBI counter-intelligence, Frank Figluizzi, claimed that efforts by foreign countries to penetrate universities have been increasing since 2007, specifically citing China as a country that attempts to obtain classified information by means of “academic solicitation.”

Though Figluizzi admitted that most international students, researchers, and professors come to U.S. with legitimate reasons, universities are often targeted as an “ideal place” for foreign intelligence services “to find recruits, propose and nurture ideas, learn and even steal research data, or place trainees.”

Other FBI reports confirm Agent Figluizzi’s claims that international students pose a threat to US national security. One investigative report, created in 2011, identified the targeting of universities to create foreign intelligence spy rings as a marquee threat. The report outlined FBI cases beginning in 2005 that showed the successes of international students engaging in spying on US technological and military operations.

Recent examples of these espionage acts occurred in July of 2014, when a Chinese national pleaded guilty to attempting to illegally export dense articles with military application to the People’s Republic of China. The defendant was a 29 year old who was on a student visa.

Later that same year, in September, a Hawaiian man was arrested after he e-mailed classified information to a 27-year-old Chinese woman he had a romantic relationship with; she was a graduate student who had a J1 student visa.

The man was a high-ranking lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, and she had used their relationship to convince him to release numerous classified documents, including the Department of Defenses’ China Strategy and the U.S. Armed Forces Defense Planning Guide until 2018.

Between the NACAC, Reuters, Bloomberg, and the FBI, there appears to be a great threat stemming from the lack of oversight of the US student-visa system. Universities across the nation are failing to accurately identify the credentials, and even the identities, of many of the international students they extend admittance to. In return, this admittance has created a gateway to which China, and likely other foreign countries, can conduct espionage operations inside US borders, and ultimately steal vital military information and technology.