Lake Elsinore Woman Pleads Guilty To Encouraging Illegal Immigration

A Lake Elsinore woman who owns a La Verne flight school pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a visa fraud scheme that allowed people from Egypt, Sri Lanka and Taiwan to enter the United States for pilot training, even though the school was not certified to train foreign students.

Karena Chuang, 28, owner of Blue Diamond Aviation, entered the plea Monday in Los Angeles to two federal charges, admitting that she had encouraged and induced two undocumented immigrants to illegally enter the United States for her financial gain, court papers show.

Chuang was charged in an eight-count indictment filed in December in Los Angeles.

U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson set sentencing for June 11.

Prosecutors said Chuang helped foreign nationals obtain visas to attend flight schools approved to train foreign students when the students actually intended to enroll at Blue Diamond Aviation, which was not approved to enroll foreign nationals in its pilot training program.

Chuang apparently recruited students by offering lower tuition and a shorter training program than those offered by the authorized flight schools, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The investigation began in June 2010 when visa security officers in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Cairo bureau reported that two Egyptian nationals who had received visas to attend a Bay Area flight school admitted that they had, in fact, planned to enroll at Blue Diamond, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.