Thread: 3 Egyptian Students Taken Into Custody

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3 Egyptian Students Taken Into Custody

Three Egyptian Students Sought for Failing to Show Up at Montana University Taken Into

By GREGG AAMOT

MINNEAPOLIS Aug 10, 2006 (AP)— Three Egyptian students who were being sought for failing to turn up for an exchange program at Montana State University were taken into custody Wednesday, more than a week after they arrived in the United States.

One student was arrested in Minnesota, and two others surrendered to authorities in New Jersey. They were among 11 students being sought by law enforcement after they failed to attend a monthlong program on the English language and U.S. history and culture in Bozeman, Mont., the FBI said.

Eslam Ibrahim Mohamed El-Dessouki, 21, was taken into custody in Minneapolis on an immigration violation. Two other students Mohamed Ragab Mohamed Abd Alla and Ebrahim Mabrouk Moustafa Abdou, both 22 surrendered to police in Manville, N.J., after hearing media reports that they were wanted, FBI spokesman Steven Siegal said.

Eight students remain at large. They arrived in New York on July 29 as part of a group of 17 students. Six students reported to Bozeman on time.

The missing students pose no terrorism threat, the FBI said.

Hamvi Kassab, a Minneapolis grocer who said he is El-Dessouki's uncle, told television station KSTP that his nephew was in town to visit relatives and to inquire about attending the University of Minnesota.

Montana State repeatedly tried to contact the missing students. When that failed, the school notified Homeland Security officials and registered the Egyptians as "no-shows" in the system developed after the Sept. 11 attacks to track foreign students.

The government tightened the student visa process after the attacks. One of the hijackers involved in the attacks had arrived in the U.S. with a student visa, and immigration officials approved student visas for two other hijackers after they entered the country. A fourth attended flight training school without a student visa.


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The Washington Times
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Last 2 Egyptian students found
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published August 15, 2006

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The arrest Sunday in Richmond of two Egyptian students in the country on visas brought to an end a massive nationwide search for them and nine other Egyptian students who failed to show up for scheduled academic programs at Montana State University.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Egyptian nationals Mohamed Saleh Ahmed Maray, 20, and Mohamed Ibrahim Fouaad El Shenawy, 17, at an apartment building in Richmond shortly before 9 p.m. They were among the group of 11 students who entered the U.S. at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport last month and failed to show up in Montana.
The ICE agents were assisted in the arrests by officers from the Virginia State Police and the Richmond Police.
Federal agents and state and local police apprehended all 11 students who were the subject of an alert issued to law-enforcement agencies nationwide last week. All have been taken into custody on administrative immigration violations as out-of-status students.
Preliminary investigation by ICE and FBI agents has not identified any credible or imminent threat posed by any of the 11 Egyptians.
On Friday night, ICE agents in Des Moines, Iowa, arrested Ahmed Refaat Saad El Moghazi El Laket, 19; Mohamed Ibrahim El Sayed El Moghazy, 20; and Moustafa Wagdy Moustafa El Gafary, 18. The agents had tracked them from New York to San Francisco to Des Moines.
On Thursday, ICE agents arrested El Sayed Ahmed Elsayed Ibrahim, 20, and Alaa Abd El Fattah Ali El Bahnasawi, 20, in Dundalk, Md. Also on Thursday, the Chicago Police Department detained Ahmed Mohamed Mohamed Abou El Ela, 22, at O'Hare International Airport as he attempted to book a flight to Montana. He was turned over to ICE.
On Wednesday, the Manville, N.J., Police Department detained Mohamed Ragab Mohamed Abd Alla, 22, and Ebrahim Mabrouk Moustafa Abdou, 22. Both were turned over to ICE. The same day, FBI and ICE agents arrested Eslam Ibrahim Mohamed El-Dessouki, 21, in Minneapolis.
More than 1,400 people have been arrested nationwide since the September 11 attacks by a special unit created to track down immigration and visa violators. Known as the Compliance Enforcement Unit (CEU), it investigates foreign students and non-immigrant or exchange visitors who violate their visa or immigration status and who may be threats to national security.
The CEU has several ICE databases at its disposal, including the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, which monitors students and exchange visitors in the U.S.




Copyright © 2006 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Good, they arrested the men who violated their visas.

Now...what's going to happen to them?