Cook Claims It Was All A "Clerical Error" - And Nevertrump Activist Judge Will Decide

 (Update: 1532ET): A Biden-appointed federal judge who defied a Supreme Court ruling earlier this month has been 'randomly' assigned to the (Biden-appointed) Lisa Cobb case, after the Federal Reserve Governor filed a lawsuit challenging her Monday firing by President Trump. Her complaint doesn't deny the underlying allegations of mortgage fraud - and instead argues that she couldn't have been fired 'for cause' over something that happened before she was confirmed to the Fed. 

Cook also argues that claiming two houses as her 'primary residence' at the same time may have been a simple 'clerical error.'

So, we're supposed to believe that a Harvard graduate and 'Top leading economist' - who's tasked with setting Fed policy - simply missed the 'primary residence' designation plastered all over the mortgage papers she signed? 

Anyway, here's the new judge, Jia Cobb, who will weigh in on the case. 

Oh Lawd status: [_] She Not Comin', [X] She Comin'

 

Cobb recently defied the Supreme Court according to the Trump administration - after she continued to block the "expedited removal" of migrants despite a Supreme Court ruling that upheld the legality of such removals. 

"Will they be summarily removed from a country that — as they are swept up at checkpoints and outside courtrooms, often by plainclothes officers without explanation or charges — may look to them more and more like the countries from which they tried to escape?" Cobb wrote in an 84-page decision against the deportation effort.

Cobb was also the judge in Jan. 6th defendant Ryan Samsel's case. Samsel was notably the first rioter to charge across police lines. After he was found guilty, prosecutors wanted him to go away for 20 years, however his February sentencing was called off after President Trump issued a blanket pardon to all J6ers. 

Now, the activist judge will decide at least the first step in Cook's fate - which is sure to be appealed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals by the losing party, after which we're guessing it's headed to the Supreme Court. 

*  *  *

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook has sued the Trump administration, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and the Board of Governors itself - after President Donald Trump fired her on Monday over claims that she lied on mortgage applications - allowing her to double-dip on tax and lending advantages. 

The lawsuit - which doesn't deny mortgage fraud!! - seeks "A declaration that President Trump’s August 25, 2025 purported firing ... is unlawful and void and that Governor Cook remains an active member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve," and a declaration from the court that "an unsubstantiated allegation of mortgage fraud prior to a Governor’s confirmation is not cause for removal."

Update: In a statement to CNBC, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte said: "In her filing, Ms. Cook does not deny that these are her mortgage documents, so one has to wonder why she, or Jerome Powell, would want this to be a part of the Federal Reserve, which is supposed to have preeminent integrity and which is critical to the safety and soundness of the U.S. Mortgage Market."

Cook's lawsuit claims that Trump violated the Federal Reserve Act, the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, and other statutory rights - and that Trump's action lacks "cause" as required by the FRA. 

Represented by former Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell - who also represents NY Attorney General Letitia James, former Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, and a whistleblower - James filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington DC - where we're sure the Jury will be interested to hear, per her complaint, that she is the first black woman on the Board. 

And while former members of the Fed have stepped down over alleged improprieties, Cook is digging in.

We're sure Cook's legal team is counting on a DC jury being sympathetic to Cook's claims in response to her firing, in which Trump accused her of "deceitful and potentially criminal  conduct in a financial matter."

The Trump-Cook clash erupted after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte dropped receipts showing that Cook lied on 2021 loan applications for two properties in Michigan and Georgia - claiming that each was her primary residence. 

Read the complaint below:

Cook Trump Comp 082825 by Zerohedge Janitor

Developing...

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/feds-lisa-cook-sues-keep-job-amid-mortgage-fraud-fiasco

As Good As It Gets? DNC Moves To Sell Crazy To An Over-Stocked Nation

 by Jonathan Turley,

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) appears to be doubling down on crazy in Minneapolis this week with calls to pack the Supreme Court and other extremist priorities.

For voters who have repeatedly shown that they want to move to a more moderate center, you are left like Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets when his character, Melvin Udall, who declared, “Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up here.”

As many know, I was raised in a politically active, liberal, Democratic family in Chicago and worked much of my life for Democratic candidates and campaigns. This week again reminded many of us how far the party has moved from its more centrist history. That includes another call to pack the Supreme Court with liberals to force or ratify sweeping political and social changes.

The meeting started in a signature fashion.

Lindy Sowmick, treasurer of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) spoke to the delegates after DNC Chairman Ken Martin asked her to recite the land acknowledgment. Sowmick asked the delegates to think about her works:

“As Democrats, I ask of every one of you to not allow land acknowledgments like these to simply be the checking of a box – be curious, ask questions, ensure our native neighbors are heard and work in partnership with your Indigenous communities.”

Sowmick then declared:

“The DNC acknowledges and honors the Dakota Oyate – the Dakota people – who are the original stewards of the lands and waters of Minneapolis. The Dakota cared for the lands, lakes and the Wakpa Tanka – the ‘Great River,’ the Mississippi River – for thousands of years before colonization. This land was not claimed, or traded – it’s a part of a history of broken treaties and promises. And, in many ways, we still live in a system built to suppress Indigenous peoples’ cultural and spiritual history.”

From there, it was a free-for-all, including a fierce fight over a resolution to condemn Israel.

Martin strangely forced a divisive debate, where he and others pushed through a resolution that only called for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid, which was denounced by others. After passing the resolution, he then moved to rescind it as an act of unity. It left many wondering what the purpose of the exercise was in forcing a debate and then withdrawing the passed resolution.

Delegates continued to show how out of touch the party has become, including one assuring delegates that the public really does not care about carjackings and migrant crimes despite the polls. Another insisted that today the nation is worse to live in than during the pandemic.

Laurence S. Zakson is a DNC member from California and a partner at Reich Adell & Cvitan in Beverly Hills.

He and others called for Congress to act on changing the size of the Supreme Court due to the alleged partisan agenda of the majority and the failure to reach correct decisions.

It is the same playbook that Democrats have used in the last two elections to pack the Court with liberals.

Some on the left have even called for the Supreme Court to be “dissolved.” That rhetoric has been matched by Democratic leaders. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer previously declared in front of the Supreme Court, “I want to tell you, [Neil] Gorsuch, I want to tell you, [Brett] Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) stated that she wants to impeach all six of the conservative justices. She was immediately joined by other Democratic members. Previously, she admitted that she does not understand why we even have a Supreme Court. She asked, “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.”

Other members, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have called for packing the Court with additional members to immediately secure a liberal majority to rule as she desires. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., RI) has assured voters that Vice President Kamala Harris will support the packing of the Court with a liberal majority.

Polls show the public understands that such moves are madness. Some of us have discussed the expansion of the Supreme Court for years, but there is a difference between expanding and packing. This is court packing in its rawest and most dangerous form.

It is one last pitch for crazy in an already over-stocked nation.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/good-it-gets-dnc-moves-sell-crazy-over-stocked-nation

'Classify Gender Dysphoria As A Mental Illness Again'

 When a tragedy like the one at Annunciation Catholic School on August 27 unfolds, the knee-jerk reaction from Democrats and their allies in the corporate media is to demand more gun grabs and recruit Republicans to pass red flag laws.

There is a solution, however, that wouldn’t require any further encroachment on law-abiding Americans’ Second Amendment rights. In fact, the answer lies in the very paperwork and background checks that leftists often claim aren’t enough of an obstacle to guns.

Curbing the alarming rise of shootings committed by people pretending to be the opposite sex starts with treating transgenderism as a serious mental health issue.

Page two of the 4473 transaction record required for any gun purchase from a federally-licensed firearms dealer includes a series of yes or no questions designed to determine someone’s eligibility to purchase and own firearms. Question 21 subhead g specifically asks a potential buyer whether they have “ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution?”

As the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has repeatedly clarified, this provision does not apply to “a person in a mental institution for observation or by voluntary admission.” Instead, it bars people who were “formally committed to a mental institution by court, board, commission or other lawful authority” involuntarily for “mental defectiveness or mental illness” or other reasons such as “drug use.”

For centuries, an open desire to masquerade as the opposite sex was defined and treated as a weighty mental and behavioral disorder. By 1980, transgenderism was officially classified as a psychosexual disorder in third edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. More than 30 years later in 2013, however, APA’s fifth edition DSM removed gender identity disorder as a diagnosis and replaced it with gender dysphoria, which focused less on fixing gender-bending and more on doing whatever it took to relieve the “marked incongruence.”

Widely recognized American and global health and medical institutions quickly followed APA’s lead in shying away from dubbing transgenderism a mental illness. Some, such as Johns Hopkins, went as far as opening centers devoted to “affirming” those struggling with accepting their sex. By 2019, the World Health Organization removed “gender incongruence” from its list of official imbalances.

These irreversible interventions euphemistically referred to as lifesaving “gender affirming care” paired with rhetoric from Democrats who undoubtedly incite violence by insisting Republicans are “erasing trans people” have had more than a decade to take effect.

The results, as seen in both science and culture, are less than ideal. Not only are more people than ever struggling with the social contagion of the LGBT movement, but more of those people are also resorting to deadly acts of violence often linked to and motivated by their struggle.

In olden days, the genderbending and deranged musings of the alleged shooter who sprayed bullets through the stained glass during a Catholic school’s mass would get him institutionalized and easily disqualify him from lawfully obtaining a gun, as law enforcement officials claim he did. Instead, the disordered impulses and feelings of those like the deceased suspect are indulged by his parents, the people who govern him, and leftist-led brainwashing.

https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/28/we-dont-need-gun-control-we-need-to-classify-gender-dysphoria-as-a-mental-illness-again/

E.J. Antoni Is the Right Man for BLS

 The Bureau of Labor Statistics has struggled in recent years. To understand the nation’s employment situation, the BLS regularly surveys people across industries and the workforce. Many have stopped responding. Seasonal adjustment and sampling techniques are in disarray, further hindering the bureau’s work. Lawmakers of both political parties have called for reform. E.J. Antoni, President Trump’s nominee for BLS commissioner, is the right man for the job.

Mr. Antoni has a doctorate in economics and is experienced in the policy world. I have known him for years and once tried to hire him. He is a serious research economist who has been writing and talking about how to raise the BLS’s standards.

The frequency and magnitude of data revisions at the BLS have strained the agency’s credibility. This month the agency lowered its employment estimates for May and June by a combined 258,000 jobs. Last year the BLS revised down its annual benchmark payroll growth by 818,000 jobs. These aren’t one-off mistakes but part of a pattern that puts our markets, research and economic policy at risk. Month after month, we have seen job revisions of 50,000 or 100,000 and higher.

In 2024 Mr. Antoni told the Daily Caller: “Revisions are a normal part of the reporting process, but large changes, or adjustments that consistently move in the same direction, are not normal. . . . Instead, they’re indicative of something problematic with the BLS’ methodology. That can happen when market conditions change drastically enough to be outside of the assumptions used in their models.”

Mr. Antoni is chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, which has been at the forefront of developing statistical reform on Capitol Hill, beginning in the 1990s with the founding of the Center for Data Analysis. William Beach, the longtime director of the Center for Data Analysis, was BLS commissioner during Mr. Trump’s first term. Mr. Beach initiated reforms at the agency that got off track under his Biden-appointed successor.

Last month, before Mr. Antoni’s nomination, a bipartisan group of academic economists sent a letter to lawmakers in Washington urging reform at the government’s statistics agencies. “We call on the Executive Branch to explicitly embrace the agencies’ long-awaited modernization plans and grant them flexibility in spending the money appropriated to them,” the letter read. With signatories from the University of Michigan, Harvard, UCLA and MIT, among others, the letter warned that “chronic and acute challenges have combined to bring agencies to the brink of crisis. They will need both financial resources and committed political leadership to ensure this moment of disruption lays the groundwork for a stronger future.”

Committed political leadership has acted to put in place long-awaited modernization. Mr. Trump did so by nominating Mr. Antoni to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Arthur Laffer is chairman of Laffer Associates.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/e-j-antoni-is-the-right-man-for-bls-politics-policy-a8851da1

'Trump's options to ease Russia sanctions limited compared to Europe's'

 U.S. President Donald Trump could quickly lift some sanctions on Russia as a reward to Moscow if peace talks with Ukraine go well, but only Europe can take the bigger steps needed to significantly ease Russia’s cash crunch. 

Trump in recent days has renewed a threat to impose more sanctions and tariffs on Russia and buyers of its oil if there is no progress toward a peaceful settlement in the 3-1/2-year-long war in Ukraine. But if talks go well, he could begin to lift some of the punitive measures. 

Among Trump's options are releasing seized Russian assets, reopening U.S. lending to Russian banks and corporations, and allowing U.S. oil services companies to return to Russia’s far-flung oil and gas fields.

Without Europe’s cooperation, however, those measures would have limited effect and the most damaging sanctions – including massive restrictions on Russia’s global oil trade, the lifeblood of its economy – would stay in place.

Oil and gas revenue accounts for about a quarter of Russia's total federal budget proceeds. Revenues from the sector have fallen sharply, a painful outcome for Russia amid higher spending since launching its military campaign in Ukraine.

"The U.S. unilaterally has far less to offer than the Europeans who have little reason to give Russia a break until they get a satisfactory resolution on Ukraine," said Craig Kennedy, an associate at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

The European Union has stressed it intends to maintain pressure on Russia until Moscow ends the war.

The biggest step Trump could take would be to ease Treasury Department sanctions restricting U.S. oilfield service companies from working in Russia, potentially enabling Russia to boost oil and gas production from some of its hardest-to-drill places, including in the Arctic.

U.S. and Russian officials have discussed the possibility of Exxon Mobil re-entering Russia’s Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project, Reuters previously reported, citing sources. Sakhalin-1 has to date not been directly designated under extensive U.S. sanctions on Russian energy.

The officials also discussed the possibility of Russia purchasing U.S. equipment for its LNG projects, such as Arctic LNG 2, which is under sanctions, the sources said. 

Probably the quickest way to ease Russia's cash crunch, however, would be for Europe to lift a ban on imports of Russian seaborne oil into the region. Europe was the destination for nearly half of Russia's crude and petroleum product exports before the invasion of Ukraine, according to the International Energy Agency.

Reopening that market would allow Russia to reduce the billions of dollars in shipping costs it pays to send crude oil by tanker to China and India - now Russia’s main buyers.

But that's out of Washington's hands. 

Europe would need to cooperate in any decision to lift a price cap imposed on Russian oil trades, though the U.S. could theoretically undermine it by stopping its own enforcement activities. 

The cap, which the EU has agreed to tighten in September to $47.60 a barrel from $60 a barrel, is intended to limit Moscow’s revenues when oil markets are hot, without hindering global flows.

FROZEN ASSETS

The U.S. and Europe have the option of releasing Russian central bank assets held since the invasion, but here again, Europe has much more pull.

The EU has about $230 billion of the assets, while the U.S. has identified about $5 billion of the Russian assets in its banking system, according to Axios.

Returning those assets is one of the few moves Trump could take without Congress. It could be done in secret through licenses from the Treasury Department, details of which are not released to the public.

"Releasing those funds would not go unnoticed by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin while likely avoiding any domestic attention," said Jeremy Paner, a partner at law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed and former Treasury Department sanctions investigator.

Europe also holds the cards when it comes to re-admitting Russian banks to the SWIFT global payments network, which is based in Brussels and under EU law. 

The West could open the taps on capital markets lending to Russian banks and corporations. But big U.S. banks would be unlikely to lend large sums without European counterparts doing the same, according to Kennedy.

"Historically, European banks led the way in Russia, they have the expertise and the risk appetite," Kennedy said.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/trumps-options-to-ease-russia-sanctions-limited-compared-to-europes

Bolton Probe Focuses On Emails Obtained By Hostile Foreign Spy Service

 At least one dimension of the federal investigation of former Trump national security advisor John Bolton focuses on personal emails of his that were obtained by a foreign government spy agency -- with those personal emails said to have contained classified information, the New York Times has reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the probe. The investigation gained steam during the Biden administration, and quietly brewed before culminating in last week's FBI raid on Bolton's Bethesda, Maryland home. He has not yet been charged with any crime. 

During Biden's term, the US government found that an adversarial government's spy agency had come into possession of emails that Bolton appeared to have sent to close associates, using an unclassified delivery method. The emails seemed to include information that Bolton had learned from classified documents, and he was sending the emails to various people who were helping him gather information for use in his 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”

FBI agents carry empty boxes into John Bolton's home in Bethesda after serving a warrant on Friday morning (Jose Luis Magana / AP via New York Sun)

As Bolton's book was about to be released, the Trump administration sued to delay its publishing. Around that same time, the Justice Department started a criminal probe to determine if Bolton had mishandled classified material via revelations included in the book. The Times sources say the search of Bolton's home was aimed at determining if he had any material in his possession that confirmed the authenticity of the emails that were in the hands of the foreign spy agency.

The information that ended up in foreign-government hands apparently did not end up being included in his book, the Times sources say. However, after the first Trump administration sought to thwart the book's release, Judge Royce Lamberth concluded that "Defendant Bolton likely jeopardized national security by disclosing classified information in violation of his nondisclosure agreement obligations.” Nonetheless, he didn't attempt to block the book's distribution, saying "the horse is already out of the barn," referring to the fact that excerpts had been published and 200,000 copies had already shipped.  

After the warrant was served at Bolton's home on Friday morning, President Trump disclaimed any knowledge of the investigation. He did, however, share his disdain for Bolton, whom he'd hired despite prescient warnings from people like Sen. Rand Paul: 

"I don't know about it. I saw it on television this morning. I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He's a real sort of lowlife... I know nothing about it...I tell [Attorney General] Pam [Bondi], and I tell the group, I don't want to know about it. You have to do what you have to do." 

In another development, the Times reported that Bolton is negotiating with criminal defense attorney Abbe Lowell, whose current high-profile clients include New York state attorney general Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. James is facing federal grand jury scrutiny of her civil fraud case against Trump, which resulted in a $500 million fine that was thrown out earlier this month. Trump fired Cook on Monday, after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte asked the DOJ to investigate her for suspected mortgage fraud.  

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bolton-probe-focuses-emails-obtained-hostile-foreign-spy-service

DHS Proposes Revamp Of Student And Exchange Visas, Citing Fraud And Abuse

 by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Aug. 27 posted a draft version of proposed changes to temporary visas for overseas students and exchange visitors.

The proposed changes—posted in a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register officially dated Aug. 28—look to establish a fixed visa period for nonimmigrant students, exchange visitors, and foreign media personnel to stay in the United States.

Current rules allow F (student) and J (educational and cultural exchange visitor) nonimmigrant visa holders to remain in the United States under a “duration of status (D/S)” or “duration of employment” model that the department said referred to an unspecified period of time, with no oversight or vetting, for authorized presence in the United States.

The current rules do not allow immigration officers “enough predetermined opportunities to directly verify that aliens granted such nonimmigrant statuses are engaging only in those activities their respective classifications authorize while they are in the United States,” the DHS notice said.

“In turn, this has undermined DHS’s ability to effectively enforce compliance with the statutory inadmissibility grounds related to unlawful presence and has created incentives for fraud and abuse.”

The DHS said that the fixed period being proposed for these visa groups, and their spouses or dependents, would be “until completion of their program or four years, whichever is shorter.” The F and J visa holders’ spouses are not allowed to work, but their children can attend U.S. public schools.

Representatives of foreign media on I non-immigrant visas were also included for proposed changes. The draft recommended a fixed 240 days for these visa holders, with the option to extend for another 240 days through an extension-of-stay application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The changes will bring these visa classes in line with the rules for other types of nonimmigrant visas, which have specific departure dates, the DHS said.

The proposal suggests giving F visa holders an additional 60 days from the law’s effective date to leave the United States, while J visa holders will be given 30 additional days from their program end date to depart the country. The department will also consider reducing the 60-day grace period for students to 30 days, aligning it with other visitor groups.

Those needing additional time to complete their studies or exchange programs can continue to file an extension-of-stay request.

If their extension-of-stay application is denied, visa-holders and their dependents must immediately depart the United States.

Nonimmigrants can apply for new study or exchange programs and can apply for a new visa allowing for another maximum stay of four years for their new program.

Vulnerabilities for National Security

The draft document outlined instances of concern as examples of why the DHS is pursuing the changes, particularly in the F and J visa classes. The case studies highlighted vulnerabilities to U.S. national security created by the open-ended nature of the “duration of status” visas.

One instance was from September 2019, when the FBI charged and convicted a Chinese official, Zhongsan Liu, with conspiracy to fraudulently procure J visas for Chinese officials tasked with recruiting U.S. scientists for state-sponsored efforts to steal U.S. technology.

Another example was from December 2019, when 29-year-old graduate student Zaosong Zheng, on an exchange visit with Harvard University, was indicted for allegedly smuggling stolen intellectual property out of the United States and lying about it.

In January 2020, J visa recipient Ye Yanqing was charged with visa fraud, acting as a foreign agent, and conspiracy after she lied about her ongoing military service at a top military academy directed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and allegedly completed numerous assignments while at Boston University’s Department of Physics, Chemistry, and Biomedical Engineering as a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) lieutenant.

In 2025, a Chinese national and member of the CCP—and J visa recipient—doing an exchange at the University of Michigan was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy, smuggling a noxious fungus into the United States capable of billions of dollars in agricultural losses, and visa fraud, while allegedly receiving Chinese government funding for her work.

A December 2018 National Institutes of Health (NIH) report on foreign influence in federally funded scientific research was also cited by the DHS.

“Small numbers of scientists have committed serious violations of NIH policies and systems by not disclosing foreign support (i.e., grants), laboratories, or funded faculty positions in other countries,” the report said.

The DHS notice said the proposals will address clear dangers to national security posed by foreign agents being granted F and J visas.

“A handful of those have been arrested for spying for China,” the DHS added.

The changes would also address the risk posed by foreign nationals being granted visas to study one degree, only to then transfer to a sensitive program, such as nuclear science, once they’re on U.S. soil.

Aside from the security risks, such transfers have also burdened school administrators with the costs of processing the transfer requests of students who misrepresented their intentions to study at their institutions, the department said.

The changes would still allow students to change courses, but through an extension of stay application with the USCIS. They would also be required to pay a processing fee. The department said that it would require changes to the DHS’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS).

Fraud and Abuse

The changes also crack down on misuse of F-1 student visas, as some students have abused the system by continuously enrolling in different programs at the same degree level, pursuing multiple master’s or undergraduate degrees, or even degrees of a lower educational level.

“In 2024, DHS identified nearly 77,000 F-1 students who have spent more than 10 years in student status,” the department said.

Fraud has also been committed by school owners.

“Since 2008, multiple school owners and others have been criminally prosecuted for ‘pay-to-stay’ fraud, in which school officials, in return for cash payments, falsely report that F-1 students who do not attend school are maintaining their student status,” the DHS notice said.

Some school owners even ran multiple educational businesses, between which they could transfer students as part of their fraud, it said.

In 2018, a federal judge in the Central District of California sentenced a man to 15 months in prison and a $450,000 fine over his visa fraud scheme involving three schools he owned.

Visas for students to attend language training education also came under scrutiny after the DHS “found students enrolling in lengthy periods of language training, in some cases for more than two decades.”

The draft proposed a change to offer a fixed period of entry of 24 months for language training education students to ensure they are meeting the statutory requirements of their visas.

The shorter two-year limit for language students “would provide a reasonable period of time for students to attain proficiency while mitigating the Department’s concerns about the integrity of the program,” the notice said, which aligns with the estimated guided learning hours for beginners to attain near-native English proficiency in the Cambridge English Exam.

Fee to Amend, Extend Visas

The new rules also proposed changes to the process of applying for a visa extension, proposing that any changes be processed through the USCIS for a fee.

The DHS noted that this change came as a result of its analysis of the economic impact of visa extensions as required by President Donald Trump’s executive orders 12866, 13563, and 14192 that require federal agencies to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of existing regulations and streamline their processes to be more effective.

This change would pass on $86.3 million to $88.1 million in annual costs to F, J, and I visa holders and their schools and sponsors.

Those applying for an extension will also be required to submit their biometrics, aimed at “enhancing the government’s oversight and monitoring of these aliens,” the DHS said.

“DHS welcomes F academic students, J exchange visitors, and I representatives of foreign information media, but it also acknowledges that the sheer size of the population complicates oversight and vetting functions,” the notice said.

The number of F visas granted has increased by more than six times since 1980, while the number of J visas has increased by more than four times, and the number of I visas has doubled.

Public Comments Sought

The public comments period on the DHS’s proposed rule, identified by Docket No. ICEB-2025-0001, is open until Sept. 27 through the Federal eRulemaking Portal, or by mail or fax. All departments facing any changes to their reporting or record-keeping requirements inherent to the proposed rule changes have 60 days to comment, as per the 1995 Paperwork Reduction Act. Their deadline is Oct. 27.

“DHS will review all properly submitted comments and materials and may revise the rule based on public feedback,” the department said.

“DHS encourages all interested parties to participate in this rulemaking by submitting data, views, comments, and arguments on all aspects of this notice of proposed rulemaking. Comments providing the most assistance to DHS will reference a specific portion of this rule, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include the data, information, or authority that supports the recommended change.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dhs-proposes-revamp-student-and-exchange-visas-citing-fraud-and-abuse