A foreign student from India is being kicked out of the country after admitting he managed to scam the State Department, Homeland Security and a major U.S. university into helping him get a student visa and a full ride to college.

Aryan Anand’s case has become a social media sensation and an embarrassing black eye for the government.

As he tells it in a lengthy write-up on Reddit, he faked his records, right down to creating a bogus website and email for his high school so he would be the one submitting the bogus records — and answering any questions about it. He fabricated a death certificate for his still very alive father to get a full-ride scholarship. And he bamboozled the State Department into clearing him for the student visa.

He settled in at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania where he applied for an internship and was hired, even though he was not authorized to work.

Then he blew the whistle on himself in his confessional post on Reddit. Another user saw it and forwarded it to investigators and they swooped in.

“I have built my life and career on lies,” he said, lamenting the life trap he’d set for himself.

Now he’s unraveling those lies, pleading guilty on June 12 to a forgery charge in exchange for other charges being dropped. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him and put him before an immigration judge who ordered him deported. Now he’s awaiting his ouster.

The Times-Herald in Northampton, Pennsylvania, reported that Lehigh was forgiving the $85,000 in tuition and other costs he bilked, under the condition that he accept his deportation.

Jon Feere, a former chief of staff at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees the student visa program, said there’s blame to go around.

“Every step of the way, the right questions weren’t asked,” he said. “It really raises serious questions about how widespread fraud like this is within our system. This isn’t just a one-off case. this is simply a case where the person who engaged in the fraud admitted to the wrongdoing.”

Anand, 18, characterized his scam as a sort of escape from his life in India where he was an unmotivated student, spending his final years of high school watching horror movies and seeing his grades tumble.

He figured he’d never get into a college in India with his record so he began looking abroad. He gravitated to U.S. schools, with generous need-based aid packages.

In his Reddit post he said he faked his school records and a school email address, used ChatGPT to write his college essays and applied to schools all over the U.S. that promised to meet all of a student’s financial needs.

Lehigh bit, offering him a “very good” package of tuition and nearly full board. Everything but meals. He said his father could have afforded that cost, but then he’d still “have to listen to everything he tells me.” His solution, he wrote, was to craft a fake death certificate, argue his mother couldn’t afford anything, and hope the school would pony up more. They did, promising to cover tuition, housing, meals and even one round-trip flight.

The next step was to get the student visa, which he was nervous about. It turned out he had no reason to be.

“They first asked why this university and all. I said something unique about the uni and then said they also gave me a full ride, which means full scholarship. As soon as she saw that on my I20 (it’s a doc for the visa), she said, ‘Oh, that’s good,’ smiled and said congrats, and said, ‘You must be very smart’ … and instantly typed something on the computer and said your visa is approved,” he recounted.

Anand arrived as a freshman last summer as a computer science major. But he was still unmotivated and said he cheated on his exams to get perfect grades.

He wanted to get a job to make money but knew that was illegal for a student visa holder. But he thought he might be able to get an internship. He applied, fabricated his resume and college records, and got a part-time remote-work job earning $1,500 a month.

ICE said he was not authorized to work, so that was another violation of the terms of his visa.

ICE described the case as a victory.

“The discovery of the student’s fraudulent activities directed toward Lehigh University and government entities and diligent collaboration in taking prompt action demonstrates that fraud in the student visa system will not be tolerated,” the agency said in a statement.

ICE said it’s up to the schools to initiate a visa and it’s up to the State Department to decide whether to grant the visa.

Lehigh didn’t respond to requests for comment.

ICE said Lehigh “fulfilled” its duties by notifying the government of the case and terminating Anand’s file in ICE’s student visa system.

The State Department, in response to an inquiry from The Washington Times about his description of the student visa interview, defended its process but said the interviewer has to go by the information provided by the student and the school.

“Visa applicants are continuously screened, both at the time of their application and afterward, to ensure they remain eligible to travel to the United States,” the department said in a statement.

Mr. Feere said the State Department figures Homeland Security is vetting the overseas schools. Homeland Security figures the U.S. colleges are doing it. And the colleges figure someone in the federal government is.

In the end, none of them were.

Add to that a permissive attitude that shifts the burden from the migrant proving he’s worthy and onto the U.S. to prove he’s not.

“That type of mentality is exactly what allows a high school kid to defraud the entire system,” Mr. Feere said.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.