Quyen Ngo, one among the four US students who were sent back from Russia for having wrong visas. (Associated Press)
Four students from Northern California who were in Russia for a leadership conference are returning to the US early because Russian authorities say they had the wrong visas.
June Thompson, the executive director of the Oakland-based California Association of Student Councils, says the students who range in age from 18 to 27 had obtained tourist visas for their trip that began October 31. But immigration authorities and police arrived at the conference unexpectedly on Thursday and said they should have obtained business visas.
Thompson says officials interrogated the students, briefly detained them for trial and fined them each $110.
She says the students are from San Jose and Chico, and none of them were harmed.
They're expected to land at San Francisco International Airport on Tuesday.