Washington:
The US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) have removed radio tags from three more Indian students of the now shut-down Tri Valley University (TVU) in California and also returned their passports.
Susmita Gongulee Thomas, the Consul General, Indian Consulate San Francisco, said ICE has returned the passports of these three students along with the two others, from whom radio tags were removed last week.
"We understand the concerns of the Indian government. We want to resolve these cases and those that are just ensnared in somebody else's fraud. We understand that they've been put in kind of a limbo status as a result of this. We regret that very much," said State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley.
In all radio tags so far has been removed from five of the 18 Indian students. These students were taken to ICE by two immigration attorneys, Kalpana Peddibhotla and Manpreet Gahra.
Encouraged by the positive development, Thomas said 10 more students would be taken to ICE next week by these two immigration attorneys and they are very optimistic of the same positive outcome.
"Five of the 18 students are now free of the radio tags. Students were feeling very badly about. It was humiliating to go around with these tags," Thomas told PTI.
The Consul General said, three of the students who have radio tags have gone to their own lawyers, so she has no information about them.
The two immigration attorneys -- Kalpana Peddibhotla and Manpreet Gahra are from the South Asian Bar Association, who in association with the Consulate had held free legal aid camp for the Tri Valley Students.
"Our primary concern and priority was to get these radio tags removed," she said.
Thomas said community organisations in the Bay area, especially the Telugu Association of North America, have been supporting these students in distress. She urged other community organisations to come forward with their resources to help these students.
The Consul General said the TVU students are from various parts of the country, not only from Andhra Pradesh alone.
"There are students from Kerala; some are from (West) Bengal. Some are from Madhya Pradesh. Some are Gujaratis," she said.
(With PTI inputs)