Visa fraud effecting local colleges

A Laguna Niguel resident was arrested March 8 for leading a student visa fraud program allowing foreign students to remain in the country.

Eamonn Daniel Higgins, 46, was caught impersonating students on visas from the Middle East. Higgins attended class and completed finals and class papers for as much as $1,500 for a course assignment, allowing these student’s visas to remain valid. 

He attended 10 different schools in Southern California, including: Cal State L.A., Irvine Valley College and Santa Monica College, Saddleback College, Coastline Community College, Golden West College, Orange Coast College, El Camino College, Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Fullerton College was not listed as a school Higgins attended, but is this community college taking any precautions to prevent something like this from happening? This is the kind of problem that can fly right under the radar without any one noticing due to the difficulty level of detecting someone impersonating a student. 

According to Interim Vice President of Instruction Scott McKenzie, “this is definitely a concern of ours, but there is no real solution to prevent this from happening.” McKenzie also went on to say “a case discovered like this brings into question whether this has happened more without anyone noticing.”

It is almost unachievable for teachers to detect whether students are being honest with their identity. If one was able to duplicate Higgins route by producing false identifications with the correct names of the students, then it makes the task impossible to discover an imposter student.

“With over 400 international students attending Fullerton College, it’s almost impossible for faculty to ask for identification,” said Dr. Sam Schauerman, Interim President. “This problem is difficult to find and even harder to find the people involved.”

While there has been no history of this kind of thing happening at Fullerton College, its not safe to say that this could never exist on campus.