Student Visa Fraud

Eamonn Daniel Higgins has been charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud for attending ten different schools in Southern California on behalf of dozens of foreign students. The students, mostly from the Middle East, would pay him to sit in class, take exams and write their papers so their visas would stay in effect. They paid as much as $1,500 for course assignments and finals. The special agent in charge of investigations said that this was a "really sophisticated" scheme-- something they'd never seen before. Higgins carried on his plan from 2002 to 2009 and even had employees working for him. Authorities were first made aware of his actions when a wallet was found with seven fake California driver's licenses, all with a photo of Higgins' nephew. Higgins now faces up to five years in federal prison and the 16 students who had hired him have also been arrested and face criminal and immigration consequences.

Criminal Law Updates by the Law Offices of William W. Bruzzo (714) 547-4636

Here is a video from the Orange County Register's ocvarsity.com

Constitutional or Discourteous?

Last week Michael Oren gave a speech at University of California, Irvine in Orange County, California, describing the issues he faced as Israeli ambassador. His speech was interrupted multiple times from members of the audience that did not agree with him. A video posted online showed the interruptions occurring roughly every ten minutes. Professor Petracca of the Political Science department expresses his impatience with the outbursts and called out "Shame on you!" when he took the podium to control the ruckus caused by the interruptions. He told the audience that this behavior is not appropriate for University of California students. The spirit of the event as explained by Professor Petracca and Chancellor Drake was to provide a forum for an exchange of ideas and discussion on the Middle East situation. They said that a better way for the UCI Muslim Student Union (the group expressing their dissatisfaction with the speaker) to express their disagreement would be by presenting the ambassador with questions at the end of his talk. University officials were likely embarrassed by the students' conduct. The MSU has put on its share of displays on campus denouncing Israeli occupation and their tactics and the tolls it takes on the Palestinian community. Indubitably the University would have preferred picketing outside the speaking venue. Yet it's important to remember that a marginalized group may feel that working within the accepted modes of expression is not effective. The outbursts managed to successfully interrupt Oren from talking, but did not communicate any counter point. Some people present complained that UCI should have taken better measures to control the crowd and that the outbursts made UCI look bad. Notably, as soon as a person yelled out they were escorted out of the auditorium. The position that UCI takes on the incident is that expression is permitted within certain limits dictated by place and time. It is unclear if the students will be charged criminally. If they are they can be charged with disturbing the peace under Penal Code section 415 (2); this penal code section prohibits using "loud and unreasonable" noise. Despite the strong protection of Free Speech in the U.S. Constitution it does appear that the manner in which the students sought to protest the ambassador fell outside the protection of the constitution.

Criminal Law Updates by the Law Offices of William W. Bruzzo (714) 547-4636


Here is a video from OCRegister.com