(Image source from: Graytvinc.com)

The 8 Indians, who were recently detained for recruiting several hundred students mostly from India to remain illegally in the US by enrolling in a fraudulent university, have pleaded not guilty before a federal court in Michigan.

Phanideep Karnati,35, one among the 8 students is having a H-1B visa was released on a bond of USD 10,000 on Monday.

He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

All eight of them arrested last Monday from Florida, Detroit and Virginia in a nationwide crackdown operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE).

ICE also arrested 130 students of which 129 were Indian Nationals.

Remaining seven others Naveen Prathipati, Aswanth Nune, Barath Kakireddy, Prem Rampeesa, Avinash Thakkallaplly, Suresh Kandala, and Santosh Sama consented to their continued detention before judge in the Michigan.

All of them were produced one week after their arrests.

John W Brusstar, lawyer of Karnati told PTI over phone from Michigan that “All of them pleaded not guilty.”

He blamed the Federal government of trapping people by carrying out such a undercover operation

Mr Brusstar told PTI “ It was all choreographed,” in response to a question

None of the seven Indians had hired an attorney except for Phanideep karnati.All of them are believed to be in late 20s and 30s.

“Mr Karnati was released on a bail because of his good track record,” said Mr Brusstar.

Phanideep karnati came to US some 10 years ago, Information technology engineer having H-1B visa.

If convicted all eight of them may face imprisonment of up to 5 years.

According to indictment, these eight Indians conspired and facilitated the foreign citizens to enroll in the fraudulent University as part of “pay to Stay” scheme

As this scheme allowed students to remain in US as students and obtain work authorization under the CPT program.

-Sai Kumar