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Friday 8 January 2010
Lessons on lying for Chinese who seek US visas
Private ‘training centres’ that tutor Chinese to lie to US immigration officers to get student visas have emerged, with one chain claiming a 98 per cent success rate, a news report said.
BEIJING: Private ‘training centres’ that tutor Chinese to lie to US immigration officers to get student visas have emerged, with one chain claiming a 98 per cent success rate, a news report said.
Some centres even offer money-back guarantees.
At a Beijing centre, students guided by English teachers spend up to a month memorising answers to several hundred questions that visa officers have asked in the past, the Global Times reported.
The school even brings in a foreigner occasionally to play a visa officer’s role during practice sessions, the paper said.
The school charges students a 10,000-yuan (S$2,000) fee only if they get a visa.
That is not so hard, said the centre’s owner, who wanted to be known only as Bruce. He runs other similar centres here.
‘Immigration officers just listen and decide based on what you say,’ he said. ‘Some of them never look at any documents.’
Another centre told the newspaper that for 25,000 yuan, it could help poor students prove they have enough money to study abroad.
Over 80 per cent of Chinese student visas are approved, with more than 90,000 issued this year, the report said, citing the US Embassy in Beijing.
Most students at Bruce’s centre recited from prepared scripts that their fathers were either general managers or top officials in high-tech or trading companies based in Tianjin or Beijing, making around 600,000 yuan a year.
They said they planned to return to China after their studies to work for their fathers’ companies.
But none of them, when questioned by the paper, could answer basic questions about what the companies did.
One student, who said he had chosen Wichita State University, drew a blank when asked ‘When will you leave?’ and ‘When does school start?’
Bruce said he does not instruct the students to lie, but they are told the answers would lead to visas being granted.
He said students prepared their own documents but added: ‘Of course some of them are fake. This is China.’
Most of his students hire a lawyer and stay in the US after graduating, he said.
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Lessons on lying for Chinese who seek US visas
BEIJING: Private ‘training centres’ that tutor Chinese to lie to US immigration officers to get student visas have emerged, with one chain claiming a 98 per cent success rate, a news report said.
Some centres even offer money-back guarantees.
At a Beijing centre, students guided by English teachers spend up to a month memorising answers to several hundred questions that visa officers have asked in the past, the Global Times reported.
The school even brings in a foreigner occasionally to play a visa officer’s role during practice sessions, the paper said.
The school charges students a 10,000-yuan (S$2,000) fee only if they get a visa.
That is not so hard, said the centre’s owner, who wanted to be known only as Bruce. He runs other similar centres here.
‘Immigration officers just listen and decide based on what you say,’ he said. ‘Some of them never look at any documents.’
Another centre told the newspaper that for 25,000 yuan, it could help poor students prove they have enough money to study abroad.
Over 80 per cent of Chinese student visas are approved, with more than 90,000 issued this year, the report said, citing the US Embassy in Beijing.
Most students at Bruce’s centre recited from prepared scripts that their fathers were either general managers or top officials in high-tech or trading companies based in Tianjin or Beijing, making around 600,000 yuan a year.
They said they planned to return to China after their studies to work for their fathers’ companies.
But none of them, when questioned by the paper, could answer basic questions about what the companies did.
One student, who said he had chosen Wichita State University, drew a blank when asked ‘When will you leave?’ and ‘When does school start?’
Bruce said he does not instruct the students to lie, but they are told the answers would lead to visas being granted.
He said students prepared their own documents but added: ‘Of course some of them are fake. This is China.’
Most of his students hire a lawyer and stay in the US after graduating, he said.
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