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Nine Chinese students who attend Arizona State University were denied entry into the U.S. when they arrived at Los Angeles International airport last month and university officials are demanding to know why the students were sent back to China.

The students were detained at LAX in the days prior to the start of classes on Aug. 22 and were on their way to the university’s Phoenix-area campuses, school officials said. But they were “deemed inadmissible” by Customs and Border Protection.

University officials said all the students were academically eligible to return to ASU and to the U.S. under their visas.

A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that there are more than 60 reasons a foreigner might be considered inadmissible, including health-related grounds, criminality, security reasons and immigration violations. The statement said the Chinese students were deemed inadmissible “based on information discovered during the CBP inspection,” but did not elaborate.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.