The call comes late at night, waking up a student with an angry voice that issues a threat about the student’s visa status.

Your visa is out of compliance, the aggressive caller says, and instructs the student to send thousands of dollars to an account that he says belongs to “U.S. Immigration and Customs Services.”

When the student says she or he has to call home -- which can be many time zones away for many international students -- the caller warns that if there is any delay, the student will be deported.

The threat is a scam designed to make the unsuspecting student part with his or her money, say school administrators.

“It’s a pretty serious situation,” said Senem Bakar, director of international student and scholar services at American University in Washington.

International students are not familiar “with our police and how things work. And so they sometimes will fall victim to these kinds of calls,” said Masume Assaf, director of international student and scholar advising at Pennsylvania State University.

Scams also come in what look like official -- but cleverly disguised – letters that would make it appear as if the correspondence comes from the U.S. tax agency, the International Revenue Service. These make international students more likely to buy into them.

In one instance a form with the heading, “IRS Form 2623 third-party consent,” tells the individual to complete it with personal banking details, send it back to the IRS for processing, and wait for a refund.

“And it looks pretty legitimate,” Assaf said. But instead, their accounts are hacked.

The legitimate document is Form 2624, or “Consent for Third Party Contact.”

The legitimate immigration agencies include U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Headlines are full of stories about students who have been scammed. “I was a Chinese grad student and lost all my money to a scam,” wrote Xinlu Liang, a recent graduate of the University of Southern California, for the Los Angeles Times. “How could I have been so gullible?”

Wichita State University in Kansas publishes a page of warnings, alerting students about the scams that include calls to Chinese students from people speaking in Mandarin.

“The caller encourages the victim to fly to China to complete an official statement. They may warn you not to contact any other people including your parents because you are involved in a ‘criminal case’ saying that anyone (friends or family) who is in contact with you may also be in danger,” the web page instructs.

At the same time, the scammer contacts the student’s family members or friends, saying the student has had a car accident or has been kidnapped.

The student has been warned not to contact their family. When their family can’t reach them, they think “something terrible has happened to their child and so they wire money to the scammer to ‘help’ the student with their emergency,” according to Witchita State.

Another way students can get scammed is through eBay and Craigslist, online sites where people buy and sell goods or services.

In some cases, international students who have to shop for housing online arrange to rent a property without seeing it first. When they show up to move in, they find the unit already occupied.

Scammers call from many different phone numbers and use different voices, and fake or temporary numbers that cannot be properly tracked appear on the phone’s Caller ID display. When the number is dialed, the caller hears a message saying the number is out of service.

“There is no grace period. They are very persistent. They are very authoritative,” Bakar said about scammers.

“Caller ID, which used to mean something, means nothing now,” Bakar said.

Assaf elaborates, explaining that scammers disguise their numbers to make it appear as if the police or legitimate agencies are calling. Assaf said she has had this experienced.

“John Smith” called, saying he was from the Montgomery County Police Station. When she realized it was a scam, she pushed back.

But the scammer was confident.

“I said to him, ‘Oh no, I know what you're doing.’ And he said, ‘Look, (...) see the number on your phone?’…‘Look it up.’ (It was) the Montgomery County Police Station” number, she said.

It’s tricky figuring out which calls are real. For some students, this thinking is intuitive. For others, it’s not.

“Some people, you know, it's an easy thing. For others, the students especially, when you get somebody on the phone that’s pressuring you for money and you’re scared, the brain’s telling you this: ‘There's something wrong here.’

“But your blood pressure and your heart are telling you, ‘Oh my gosh, (...) I'm in panic mode. I need to listen and get this done because I have an emergency,’” said Christina Lehnertz, director, Immigration Compliance and Advising, International Programs and Services at George Mason University in Virginia.

As a way to help differentiate among scams, Lehnertz says international students should be aware of the information they put online, especially in surveys. Red flags include submitting credit card information, their date of birth or Social Security numbers.

“Getting them to be able to tell the difference between a real survey, a real online survey and something that is phishing -- that's a challenge,” Lehnertz said. Phishing is an attempt to obtain sensitive information by fraudulent means.

Young people are not the only targets for scammers and hackers.

“Many grandparents get those kinds of calls as well. Or parents get those calls that … their child or their grandchild is in jail, they need to send money immediately,” Assaf added.

A recent scam uses an app to manipulate photos of people -- mostly women -- with clothes on to make them look like their clothes are off. If a scammer sent a text to female students threatening to publish nude photos unless a ransom is paid, the students might be so embarrassed -- especially if they are from a more modest culture -- that they would wire money to buy the photos.

“If someone is pressuring you to do something, that’s fake,” Bakar said in an interview with VOA.

Assaf says that people are becoming smarter about recognizing scams but are still bad at it. Assaf adds that students need to realize that scamming happens anywhere and to anyone.

Experts say there are ways to tell if someone is scamming you:

· The caller pretending to be from the U.S. government asks for money. Real government officials never ask for money over the phone.

· There is pressure for students to pay now rather than letting them pay later.

· The officials do not give students time to think about the situation overall.

When asked what advice she would give international students to avoid scams, Assaf offered this: “911 will never call you,” she said. “You call them.”

The administration of President Donald Trump said on Monday it will review Columbia University's federal contracts and grants over allegations of antisemitism, which it says the educational institution has shown inaction in tackling.

Rights advocates note rising antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias since U.S. ally Israel's devastating military assault on Gaza began after Palestinian Hamas militants' deadly October 2023 attack.

The Justice Department said a month ago it formed a task force to fight antisemitism. The U.S. Departments of Health and Education and the General Services Administration jointly made the review announcement on Monday.

"The Federal Government's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is considering Stop Work Orders for $51.4 million in contracts between Columbia University and the Federal Government," the joint statement said.

The agencies said no contracting actions had been taken yet.

"The task force will also conduct a comprehensive review of the more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments to Columbia University."

The agencies did not respond to requests for comment on whether there were similar reviews over allegations of Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.

Columbia had no immediate comment. It previously said it made efforts to tackle antisemitism.

College protests

Trump has signed an executive order to combat antisemitism and pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests.

Columbia was at the center of college protests in which demonstrators demanded an end to U.S. support for Israel due to the humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's assault on Gaza. There were allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in protests and counter-protests.

During last summer's demonstrations around the country, classes were canceled, some university administrators resigned and student protesters were suspended and arrested.

While the intensity of protests has decreased in recent months, there were some demonstrations last week in New York after the expulsion of two students at Columbia University-affiliated Barnard College and after New York Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the removal of a Palestinian studies job listing at Hunter College.

A third student at Barnard College has since been expelled, this one related to the occupation of the Hamilton Hall building at Columbia last year.

The Trump administration is opening new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at five U.S. universities including Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the Education Department announced Monday.

It's part of President Donald Trump's promise to take a tougher stance against campus antisemitism and deal out harsher penalties than the Biden administration, which settled a flurry of cases with universities in its final weeks. It comes the same day the Justice Department announced a new task force to root out antisemitism on college campuses.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight anti-Jewish bias on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Along with Columbia and Berkeley, the department is now investigating the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University and Portland State University. The cases were opened using the department's power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of investigations, which stem from complaints.

Messages seeking comment were left with all five universities.
A statement from the Education Department criticized colleges for tolerating antisemitism after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that followed. It also criticized the Biden administration for negotiating "toothless" resolutions that failed to hold schools accountable.

"Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses," said Craig Trainor, the agency's acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The department didn't provide details about the inquiries or how it decided which schools are being targeted. Presidents of Columbia and Northwestern were among those called to testify on Capitol Hill last year as Republicans sought accountability for allegations of antisemitism. The hearings contributed to the resignation of multiple university presidents, including Columbia's Minouche Shafik.

An October report from House Republicans accused Columbia of failing to punish pro-Palestinian students who took over a campus building, and it called Northwestern's negotiations with student protesters a "stunning capitulation."

House Republicans applauded the new investigations. Representative Tim Walberg, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said he was "glad that we finally have an administration who is taking action to protect Jewish students."

Trump's order also calls for a full review of antisemitism complaints filed with the Education Department since Oct. 7, 2023, including pending and resolved cases from the Biden administration. It encourages the Justice Department to take action to enforce civil rights laws.

Last week's order drew backlash from civil rights groups who said it violated First Amendment rights that protect political speech.

The new task force announced Monday includes the Justice and Education departments along with Health and Human Services.

"The Department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found," said Leo Terrell, assistant attorney general for civil rights. "The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools."

The Times of India breaks down the most popular subjects for international students to study in the U.S.

STEM and business lead the pack. Read the full story here. (January 2025)

U.S. News & World report addresses some of the misconceptions about U.S. colleges and universities, including the difficulty of getting a visa.

Read the full story here. (January 2025)