UPDATE, Feb. 24, 1:35 p.m.: The Paterson Public School District has announced wide-ranging penalties to its athletics department, including the suspensions of three district employees and the withdrawal of the Paterson Eastside High School girls basketball team from next week's state tournament. For details click here.

PATERSON -- At least eight international boys and girls basketball players have shown up seemingly out of nowhere to play for Paterson Eastside High School's powerhouse teams over the past four years, broadening state investigations and drawing the attention of federal agencies, NJ Advance Media has learned.

The discovery of the international pipeline comes a little less than three weeks after an NJ Advance Media report found as many as six players living with Eastside boys coach Juan Griles. Three of the boys were from Puerto Rico and not among the eight who may have violated federal immigration laws.

In the time since its initial report, NJ Advance Media has found:

Seven athletes from Nigeria have enrolled at Eastside since 2013 and, according to information on student profiles, lived with school coaches or at addresses associated with them. An eighth player, from Paraguay, lists a man who said he was not the girl's guardian.

At least seven athletes arrived in the U.S. with a Form I-20, according to school officials from around the country. An I-20 is a federal document issued by Student and Exchange Visitor Program-certified schools to foreign students who then use them to obtain a visa in their home country. Eastside, according a website managed by the Department of Homeland Security, is not certified to issue I-20s. This means at least seven athletes likely violated their immigration statuses and could face removal from the United States.

District teachers and officials became concerned about the welfare of the player from Paraguay, sparking a school investigation that found the girl was lured to Paterson with the promise of her own apartment. The inquiry, according to an official inside the school, found the girl had no health insurance, living allowance or winter coat and she was bouncing between homes.

Paterson athletic officials failed to immediately produce several layers of paperwork for some of the athletes, including transfer forms, affidavits regarding guardianship changes and school transcripts, according to two sources trying to unravel player eligibility issues.

The athletes' previous stops have included North Carolina, New York, Connecticut, Florida, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Idaho, and one has bounced between at least five locations, prompting a leading immigration attorney to suggest district officials at Eastside are "turning a blind eye to child smuggling and child trafficking."

Taken together, the new information, which comes just as the Eastside boys team dropped out of the state and county tournaments, moves the situation at the school well beyond coaches seeking to stockpile their basketball teams with international talent. The latest details suggest a staggering pattern of incompetence at the district level, where international athletes are moved in and allowed to live with school employees seemingly without oversight or regard for the players' futures, much less immigration laws.

"This is what trafficking is," said Charles Kuck, an Atlanta-based immigration attorney and an expert in the field, when told of the Eastside situation. "This is how it works. It's stunning to me that even with the government's focus on trafficking that this is still happening."

Terry Corallo, a spokeswoman for the Paterson district, declined to answer numerous questions regarding the circumstances at the school. But adults inside describe an "extremely tense" environment as John Wallace, a former New Jersey Supreme Court justice hired by the district to investigate, conducts interviews with administrators twice a week.

Wallace's investigation is happening as the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association and the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency (formerly known as the Division of Youth and Family Services) also are investigating Eastside and specifically how the six players ended up living in Griles' condo.

On the federal level, multiple agencies are aware of the player movement at Eastside, including the arrivals dating to 2013. An official from U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement said information on Eastside has been forwarded "to the appropriate parties for review."

Meanwhile, Carissa Cutrell, a public affairs officer for ICE, outlined how international students could violate their immigration status by attending a public school not certified by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.

"International students using an F or M visa to study in the United States can only transfer to another (Student and Exchange Visitor Program-certified) school," Cutrell said in a statement released to NJ Advance Media. "If they transfer to a school not certified by SEVP, they have violated the terms of their status and are amenable to removal from the United States."

'HER CRY FOR HELP'

The international pipeline at Eastside appears to have begun with the girls team, according to interviews with adults who work to place international players at high schools in the United States. Like the boys squad, the Lady Ghosts have won three straight Passaic County Tournament championships as well as two state titles the past four seasons.

Two Nigerian players arrived in 2013 with the help of Henry Ugboaja, the director of a prominent camp in Nigeria. The girls had planned to attend Evelyn Mack Academy, a private school near Charlotte, N.C., but Ugboaja said a school official there demanded $600 a month for room and board. Ugboaja, in a telephone interview, said he refused the deal and was put in contact with Eastside girls coach Ray Lyde Jr., who offered spots on his team and free housing.

Henry Ugboaja said he asked Lyde Jr. a pointed question before sending the girls to Eastside: "Are you allowed to take international students with F-1 visas?"

Lyde Jr. said yes, according to Ugboaja.

When questioned by NJ Advance Media earlier this month, Lyde Jr. refuted Ugboaja's claim and denied any wrongdoing.

"As a public school, if a kid comes to register we have to accept them," Lyde Jr. said. "The whole city of Paterson has a bunch of foreign students. We are very diverse when it comes to ethnicities."

When pressed specifically about Eastside's inability to issue Form I-20s to international students, Lyde Jr. responded, "Nobody ever said anything to me about I-20s. I don't know what an I-20 is. I really don't."

Lyde Jr. later grew agitated and shouted obscenities at two NJ Advance Media journalists.

That important I-20 document, however, eventually became an issue for a Nigerian player who came through Eastside and earned a full athletic scholarship to Vanderbilt in 2015. When officials in Tennessee looked at her immigration documents, they found serious problems, according to two people familiar with her case. The people spoke on the condition they not be identified because of privacy issues. Vanderbilt informed the player she needed to go back to Nigeria to sort out the issues before she could enroll.

The Eastside girls play against Wayne Valley. (Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Nearly six months later, the player is still in Nigeria because U.S. immigration officials have not allowed her to return, according to the sources.

"A good person is getting screwed here and she did nothing wrong," one official said. "It's not fair when people abuse the system and put minors in trouble, potentially for the rest of their lives."

The player declined to discuss her situation when reached via Twitter, only saying, "I want to get back to school as fast as possible."

In addition to the murky immigration situation, the girls' living arrangements have raised eyebrows.

The three Nigerian girls -- and another Nigerian boys player -- all claimed on internal school documents that a home owned by Shirley Jordan on East 22nd Street is their residence. Three of the players listed Shirley Jordan's daughter Montrise as their legal guardian, and a fourth player listed district employee and Eastside track coach Natalie Jordan as her guardian.

The Jordans are a prominent Paterson family known for deep community ties, and the sisters host an annual banquet -- the Frederick Jordan Memorial Scholarship Heritage Awards -- in honor of their deceased brother. When reached by phone, Shirley Jordan, the family matriarch, said she "took good care" of the first two Nigerian girls.

"I did it from my heart," Shirley Jordan said. "They went to school. We made sure they were fed good. Made sure they were respectful. What is the problem if I took care of them?"

During the phone interview Shirley Jordan refused to answer specific questions about how the girls came to live in her house, but she invited a reporter from NJ Advance Media to come to her home to discuss the situation. About 10 minutes later, Shirley Jordan called back and rescinded.

"I don't want you to come to my house!" Shirley Jordan shouted. "No comment! You cannot come here. If you do, I'm going to call my lawyer."

Natalie Jordan did not return a phone message seeking comment, and a woman who answered a phone number associated with Montrise Jordan would not provide her name before hanging up.

In addition to the Nigerian players, the girls team also has a 6-foot-9 center from Paraguay who is being recruited by colleges such as North Carolina, Southern California and Rutgers. Felix Ayala, the man listed on the player's school profile as her legal guardian, was asked about his relationship with the player.

"No, I'm not her legal guardian," Ayala said. "You gotta call her coach and whoever. I would call the school about that."

NJ Advance Media called Lyde Jr. the same day to ask about the player's situation. The coach answered and immediately hung up.

The player's living situation became a source of great concern soon after she enrolled at International High School, which permits athletes to play for Eastside teams. A school official who asked to remain anonymous told NJ Advance Media the player informed a teacher she had not had any contact with Ayala for five months and that the whereabouts of her visa were unknown.

He described the player's reaching out to the teacher as, "Her cry for help."

A school investigation found that the teenager had been brought to New Jersey with a series of false promises but instead did not have suitable living arrangements or even supplies for the winter, according to the school official.

"This girl is a wonderful young lady," according to the school official, who added that her situation had since stabilized. "She's doing nothing wrong. It's so crazy that you have to laugh. It's tragic."

'IT JUST GOT REAL'

The questions about player movement and roster stacking at Eastside began with the boys team in early February, when NJ Advance Media published a report detailing how six players were living with Griles and claiming him and his top assistant as their legal guardians on school documents. It sparked numerous investigations, led to the coaches being suspended and the team eventually ending its season early.

Since then and in addition to the new details on the other players who arrived in Paterson going back to 2013, NJ Advance Media has learned more about the Nigerians living with Griles.

Two of the boys came from Genesis Preparatory Academy, a tiny private school more than 2,500 miles away in Post Falls, Idaho. Administrators at the school confirmed they issued the boys Form I-20s that allowed them to enroll at Genesis, where they spent the 2015-16 school year.

Chris Finch, the principal of Genesis Prep, said he was "surprised and concerned" when he learned the boys had enrolled at Eastside. Finch knew that as a public school it was likely Eastside could not to issue the I-20s the boys needed to maintain their immigration status.

When reached by phone, one of the players declined to provide specifics on how the pair got to Eastside, but said they first tried to enroll at Marist High School in Bayonne with the help of a middleman. When that didn't work out, the middleman connected the two Nigerian players with Griles, the player said.

"[Griles] said he was going to make sure we eat, he was going to take care of us," the player said.

But it was the enrollment of the third Nigerian -- a 7-foot-1 center with multiple NCAA Division 1 scholarship offers -- that became the tipping point for many in the Paterson school district who had started to question the sudden arrivals of so many foreign players.

The center enrolled at Eastside on January 13, according to his student profile, after previous stops in Florida, Connecticut and Wisconsin. School officials could not contain their excitement over the latest addition to the team.

"It just got real (sic) new transfer into my school 7'1 big man with handle, good feet, can play with his back to the rim and can shoot the turn around jumper," Gregory Cooper, the Eastside athletic director, posted to his Facebook page, along with a photo of the player draping an arm over Eastside assistant coach Alberto Maldonado's shoulder. "Yeah buddy!!!!!! The rich just get richer."

But less than three weeks after his arrival, the big man was gone, leaving Paterson after the living situation on the team was exposed. He told the website SNY.tv that he wasn't at Eastside for "anything concerning sports," even though the two coaches -- first Griles, then Maldonado -- were listed as his legal guardian. His quick departure from Paterson, he said, was directly related to his immigration status.

Eastside coach Ray Lyde, Jr. (left) as his girls basketball team plays against Wayne Valley. (Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

"My lawyer said I can't be in a government school because they can't give me an I-20 to help me," the player is quoted as saying. "There was no need for me being there."

Griles, like Lyde Jr., the girls coach, said previously he did not know anything about I-20s.

"I don't get involved in all that," Griles said. "When you start talking about I-20s and all of that stuff, I don't know nothing about that."

Cooper did not return a phone message seeking comment.

'A COMPLEX SITUATION'

Controversies over player eligibility are common in high school sports, but the situation at Eastside touches on immigration, residency, child welfare and financial issues, not to mention multiple layers of state athletic association regulations that may have been violated.

Numerous state bodies -- DCP&P, the NJSIAA and the Paterson school district -- have been investigating the issues at Eastside for more than two weeks without reaching a conclusion.

"This appears to be a particularly complex situation," NJSIAA Executive Director Steve Timko said a statement released to NJ Advance Media. "Residency issues may be extremely complicated and investigations by government agencies, law enforcement or the courts will take precedence and may impact our ability to gather facts."

Girls championship banners hang in the gym at Eastside High. (Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Top immigration attorneys say the first step is determining the immigration statuses of the international student athletes and how they ended up at Eastside. The lawyers said the situation is particularly perplexing considering at least seven of the athletes came to the United States on I-20s signed by private schools, according to school officials.

Harlan York, a veteran immigration attorney based in Newark, said "your average high school in Any Town, USA isn't going to know what an I-20 is."

"Despite my 20-plus years of experience practicing exclusively in the immigration law field," York added, "I've had limited to virtually no experience in communicating with public schools about this."

Kuck, the Atlanta attorney and former national president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the international pipeline at Eastside, which includes players bouncing to numerous schools before reaching Paterson, "sounds like child trafficking."

Public school districts are required by law to educate children even if they or their parents are living illegally in the U.S., which the Eastside athletes may be if they've fallen out of status. But Kuck said that does not absolve the district from any wrongdoing considering the number of international players that have found their way to the school.

"If they're part of what is essentially a smuggling operation, that would violate other federal other laws besides those involving immigration," Kuck said. "The school's absolutely complicit if they're aware that these kids should be enrolled in a different school but are not. They should also be finding out, 'Why are all these kids coming here?'"

Kuck added he does not feel it's a reasonable excuse for coaches to claim they have no idea how the talented international players showed up in the district the past four years.

"How many are there -- eight? Nine? Nobody's paying attention?" Kuck said. "That's odd. We have all these kids form Nigeria coming here to play basketball and they happen to be undocumented students. This is kind of weird.

"Nobody opens an eyelash about that?"

NJ Advance Media research editor Vinessa Erminio contributed to this report.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.

Matthew Stanmyre may be reached at mstanmyre@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattStanmyre. Find NJ.com on Facebook.