Last 2 Missing Egyptian Students Arrested in Va.

A nationwide search for 11 Egyptian students who failed to show up for an academic program in Montana has ended with the last two caught outside their rented apartment here, U.S. authorities said Monday.

Several of the missing Egyptian students apprehended around the United States over the last week told immigration authorities they had planned to work in the United States, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said.

“Rather than seeking to attend the academic program in Montana, they actually were here to stay, get jobs and earn money,” agency spokesman Dean Boyd said.

The students did not pose “any credible or imminent threat,” Boyd said, but the agency will seek to deport them.

The last two missing students -- Mohamed Saleh Ahmed Maray, 20, and Mohamed Ibrahim Fouaad El Shenawy, 17 -- were arrested Sunday on immigration violations while sitting on the front steps of their apartment.

Two others caught near Baltimore last week were working at a pizzeria, Boyd said.

The 11 were part of a group of 17 who arrived in New York on July 29, supposedly en route to Bozeman, Mont., to attend school.

When only six students showed up in Bozeman, the school notified authorities, who sent out a “be on the lookout” request to police departments across the country.

The students were arrested alone or in groups of two or three in New Jersey, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland and Minnesota.

The United States put in place a system to track violators of its student visa program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

One of the 19 hijackers had entered the United States on a student visa, and authorities were embarrassed when, six months after the attacks, student visas came through for two other dead hijackers that would have allowed them to take flight lessons.

One of those was alleged ringleader Mohamed Atta.

Roughly 1 million foreign students are in the United States.