Eamonn Daniel Higgins spent seven years in college. Between 2002 and 2009, he attended 10 different schools in Southern California, including Cal State L.A., Irvine Valley College and Santa Monica College, according to federal prosecutors. During that time, he studied sociology, marketing, English, business and math.

But Higgins was not a student and wasn't registered in any of the classes, authorities said. Rather, dozens of foreign students -- all from the Middle East -- were paying him to sit in class, take exams and write papers so that their student visas would remain valid, according to a charging document filed in the case. Students paid up to $1,500 for course assignments and finals and about $1,000 for English and writing proficiency exams, prosecutors allege.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents said the demand for Higgins' services was so great that he hired staff, including a blond woman who they believe posed as an Middle Eastern man.

Higgins, 46, a U.S. citizen who lives in Laguna Niguel, surrendered to authorities Monday and pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana to conspiracy to commit visa fraud. He is free on $5,000 bail. If convicted, he faces up to five years in federal prison.

Higgins and his attorney, federal public defender Elizabeth Macias, declined to comment after the hearing.

Authorities believe Higgins earned hundreds of thousands of dollars helping about 120 people from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, Turkey and Qatar maintain their student visa status.

President Barack Obama's aunt, an illegal immigrant from Kenya, pleaded for political asylum before a Boston court Thursday in a case that risks embarrassing the embattled president.

Zeituni Onyango, 57, arrived at the Boston federal immigration court in her second attempt to secure asylum after ignoring a 2004 deportation order.

Defense attorney Margaret Wong said Onyango would "testify and there will be two other witnesses," both doctors.

"They're probably going to try to prevent the deportation because of medical issues," Wong said. "But we have more than one ground."

Wong said that Onyango would plead to be allowed to stay in the United States citing "tribal violence" in Kenya.

It was not clear whether Judge Leonard Shapiro would make a ruling at Thursday's closed-door hearing.

Wong said that Onyango would appeal if ordered deported. The US government also has the right of appeal.

The case puts Obama in a delicate position at a time when he is reeling from his Democratic party's failure to pass health care reform legislation and a surge in momentum for the opposition Republicans.

A federal judge in Ohio has ordered two years' probation for an immigration lawyer who illegally married to gain permanent U.S. residence.

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost issued the sentence Friday for Lillian Asante (uh-SAN'-tay), who must return to her native Ghana.

The 38-year-old Asante and her ex-husband, Kwadwo (KWAD'-woh) Asante each pleaded guilty in September to unlawfully entering into marriages to evade U.S. immigration laws.

Prosecutors say the Asantes married in Ghana, came to the United States in 2002 to earn advanced degrees, then divorced in 2004 and married U.S. citizens to obtain green cards while continuing to live as a married couple.

Frost also sentenced 40-year-old Kwadwo Asante to two years' probation. He also must return to Ghana.

Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that Weld County authorities violated the Fourth Amendment and privacy rights of suspected illegal immigrants when they used tax returns to potentially build hundreds of identity theft cases against them.

The ruling affirmed a decision by a Weld County district judge who suppressed evidence against one of the defendants. That judge said authorities had no probable cause to search the man's tax returns and that the documents are confidential.

The defendant was one of more than 70 people charged with criminal impersonation and identity theft. Some defendants pleaded guilty and were deported before the district court ruling. Pending the Supreme Court appeal, many had their cases dismissed without prejudice, which gave prosecutors the option of filing cases again if judges had ruled in their favor.

The investigation, dubbed "Operation Numbers Game," marked the first and only time in the U.S. that authorities used tax documents to try to prosecute suspected illegal immigrants.

Prosecutors had said they believed as many as 1,300 immigrants were breaking the law and that they planned to charge more people. The district attorney's office said prosecutors in other states had expressed interest in their method of investigation.

But in March, District Judge James Hartmann Jr. suppressed the evidence against one of the defendants, saying the search warrant was "nothing more than an exploratory search based upon suspicion that some unknown person or persons" committed a crime.

He also said tax records were confidential under federal law and authorities had no right to inspect the documents.

A startling petition arrived at the New York City Bar Association in October 2008, signed by 100 men, all locked up without criminal charges in the middle of Manhattan.

In vivid if flawed English, it described cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for $1 a day.

The petitioners were among 250 detainees imprisoned in an immigration jail that few New Yorkers know exists. Above a post office, on the fourth floor of a federal office building in Greenwich Village, the Varick Street Detention Facility takes in 11,000 men a year, most of them longtime New Yorkers facing deportation without a lawyer.

Galvanized by the petition, the bar association sent volunteers into the jail to offer legal counsel to detainees — a strategy the Obama administration has embraced as it tries to fix the entire detention system.

A state appellate court Wednesday upheld the validity of the LAPD's Special Order 40, the controversial policy that bans officers from asking the immigration status of crime victims and witnesses.

In affirming a lower-court ruling, the three-judge panel said the 30-year-old order strikes the appropriate balance between immigrants' rights to equal protection and the Los Angeles Police Department's need to protect communities.

In 2006, a conservative organization and a Los Angeles resident filed suit to challenge Special Order 40, saying it violates federal immigration law and asking the court to prevent the use of taxpayer money to enforce the order.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which contested the suit on behalf of domestic violence victims, lauded the ruling by the California Court of Appeals.

"Immigrants in Los Angeles no longer have to worry that they will be forced to choose between personal safety and their future," ACLU attorney Belinda Escobar Helzer said in a statement.

"The court understands, as does the LAPD, that stripping away Special Order 40 would have not only violated the law but been a grave mistake in a city with such deep immigrant roots."

Former Chief Daryl F. Gates adopted Special Order 40 as a way to encourage immigrants to cooperate with the Los Angeles Police Department.

It has been supported by every chief since then, including Chief Bill Bratton.

A unanimous Supreme Court said Monday that undocumented workers who use phony IDs can't be considered identity thieves without proof they knew they were stealing real people's Social Security and other numbers.

The court's decision limits federal authorities' use of a 2004 law, intended to get tough on identity thieves, against immigrants who are picked up in workplace raids and found to be using false Social Security and alien registration numbers.

Advocates for immigrants had complained that federal authorities used the threat of prosecution on the identity theft charge, which carries a two-year mandatory prison term, to win guilty pleas on lesser charges and acceptance of prompt deportation.

"These prosecutions have been taken off the table," said Nina Perales, southwest regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The court, in an opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer, rejected the government's argument that prosecutors need only show that the identification numbers belong to someone else, regardless of whether the defendant knew it.

Breyer said intent is often easy to prove in what he called classic identity theft. "Where a defendant has used another person's information to get access to that person's bank account, the government can prove knowledge with little difficulty," Breyer said.