The University of North Virginia (UNVA) is in Annandale, Virginia, a suburb of Washington. The university is reported to have 2,400 students of which 90 per cent are from India and an overwhelming majority are said to be from Andhra Pradesh. Like the Tri-Valley University earlier, UNVA was raided on Thursday by investigating and law enforcement agencies on charges of visa fraud. However the US administration has assured that it would protect the interests of hundreds of Indian students in the university.

Sources said the UNVA was authorised to issue I-20 form to about 50 students, but had issued and enrolled a much larger number. "Today, officials from ICE's Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP) served UNVA with a notice of intent to withdraw (NOIW) UNVA's authorisation to admit foreign students," ICE spokeswoman Cori W Bassett said in a statement.

In a day-long exercise, dozens of officials from different federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), entered the Annandale campus of the university and took away with them a large number of boxes full of documents and computer hard drives from its administrative division.

However, based on the experience of the Tri-Valley case, and given that India had strongly objected to the manner in which its students were treated, US authorities are believed to have informed their Indian counterparts that they would handle this case and follow-up action in a different manner.
Unlike Tri-Valley University, the focus of investigations here is not the students, but the school. Officials made it clear that there would be no arrest, detention or electronic monitoring of students. They also said that the university would not be immediately shut down, it had been given a months notice to explain.

The university declined to make any comment; it did not communicate with its students and staff either, except for a notice posted at the entrance that said the university was still open, but students had the choice to move to other varsities or look for other options, if they so wanted.