The report in post #29 says that they admitted they never had any intention of going to this class in Montana.
Besides, I don't think they'd end up at IAH before inquiring about Montana.
My high school sophomore exchange student from Kyrgyzstan didn't have much of a problem mastering the intracasies of international calling when hitting the airport stateside.
Things like "intent" can be misinterpreted by interviewers ~ and apparantly not all the students had relatives in the New York area ~ frankly, we don't know enough details here to make definitive statements about intent.
Same with that interrogator in Iraq who has Private Barker saying all sorts of things about Private Green that Green denies.
The fact it's been so easy to find these guys suggests they weren't hiding!