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APNewsBreak: Woman accused of breaking visa rules for foreigners at Calif. flight school
By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, November 30, 2:19 PM
LOS ANGELES — Immigration officials on Wednesday arrested a woman accused of bringing foreign students to train at her Southern California flight school on fraudulent visas and without government authorization.
Karena Chuang, 28, was arrested Wednesday at a friend’s house in Rancho Cucamonga and is charged with visa fraud for allegedly enrolling students from Egypt, Sri Lanka and Taiwan at her La Verne-based flight school, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.
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Chuang’s Blue Diamond Aviation school wasn’t authorized to receive foreign students under federal government screening procedures that aim to prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, officials said.
“She is not scrutinizing people nor does she have the ability to know whether or not they have terrorist ties, which is why the whole procedure exists,” Claude Arnold, special agent in charge of ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, told The Associated Press.
“These people are actually going up in the air to get their training — they’re getting access to aircraft, too, and we don’t know who they are,” he said.
Chuang is due to appear in federal court Wednesday afternoon in Los Angeles. A number listed for her Lake Elsinore home rang through to a fax line.
Jennifer Uyeda, an attorney with the federal public defender’s office, said she just received the case and did not have details of the allegations.
It isn’t the first time flight schools have let foreigners train without proper authorization. Last year, a flight school in El Cajon, Calif., pleaded guilty to creating fake visa documents for foreign students and a Massachusetts flight school was found to have trained illegal immigrants from Brazil.
Foreign students can apply to attend flight schools in the United States that are authorized to enroll them. The schools will issue paperwork for admitted students to then apply for a visa to travel here.
Immigration officials say Chuang posed as the students’ cousin to help them get the paperwork required to apply for visas from government authorized flight schools and then had them attend her cheaper school instead.
Chuang coached students not to tell U.S. officials during interviews that they planned to attend her flight school, Arnold said.
Arnold said none of the more than dozen foreign students who trained at Chuang’s school since 2006 had ties to terrorism.
Authorities say they learned of the scheme last year when two Egyptians who received visas to attend a flight school in Northern California admitted they planned to enroll at Blue Diamond.
If convicted, Chuang could face a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison, according to federal prosecutors.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, November 30, 2:19 PM
LOS ANGELES — Immigration officials on Wednesday arrested a woman accused of bringing foreign students to train at her Southern California flight school on fraudulent visas and without government authorization.
Karena Chuang, 28, was arrested Wednesday at a friend’s house in Rancho Cucamonga and is charged with visa fraud for allegedly enrolling students from Egypt, Sri Lanka and Taiwan at her La Verne-based flight school, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.
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Chuang’s Blue Diamond Aviation school wasn’t authorized to receive foreign students under federal government screening procedures that aim to prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, officials said.
“She is not scrutinizing people nor does she have the ability to know whether or not they have terrorist ties, which is why the whole procedure exists,” Claude Arnold, special agent in charge of ICE Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, told The Associated Press.
“These people are actually going up in the air to get their training — they’re getting access to aircraft, too, and we don’t know who they are,” he said.
Chuang is due to appear in federal court Wednesday afternoon in Los Angeles. A number listed for her Lake Elsinore home rang through to a fax line.
Jennifer Uyeda, an attorney with the federal public defender’s office, said she just received the case and did not have details of the allegations.
It isn’t the first time flight schools have let foreigners train without proper authorization. Last year, a flight school in El Cajon, Calif., pleaded guilty to creating fake visa documents for foreign students and a Massachusetts flight school was found to have trained illegal immigrants from Brazil.
Foreign students can apply to attend flight schools in the United States that are authorized to enroll them. The schools will issue paperwork for admitted students to then apply for a visa to travel here.
Immigration officials say Chuang posed as the students’ cousin to help them get the paperwork required to apply for visas from government authorized flight schools and then had them attend her cheaper school instead.
Chuang coached students not to tell U.S. officials during interviews that they planned to attend her flight school, Arnold said.
Arnold said none of the more than dozen foreign students who trained at Chuang’s school since 2006 had ties to terrorism.
Authorities say they learned of the scheme last year when two Egyptians who received visas to attend a flight school in Northern California admitted they planned to enroll at Blue Diamond.
If convicted, Chuang could face a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison, according to federal prosecutors.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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