WASHINGTON: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has identified 10,000 foreign students, including several Indians, who are suspected of misusing the Optional Practical Training (OPT) provision of their visas by claiming employment with questionable firms.
OPT permits foreign nationals studying in the United States on student visas to work in the country for up to 12 months, or 24 months in certain cases. It also provides a pathway for students to transition to employer-sponsored H-1B visas.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said the OPT scheme had “become a magnet for fraud” and was the focus of numerous investigations by the Department of Homeland Security.
“We have encountered cases involving espionage, biological threats, intellectual property theft, visa and employment fraud, and even scams targeting elderly Americans, all carried out by individuals abusing their status as students,” Lyons said.
“Our nation will not tolerate security threats arising from the foreign student programme,” he added.
Lyons and other officials explained that federal investigators had carried out site visits and uncovered cases in which OPT beneficiaries were allegedly being “managed” by employees based in India, breaching programme rules that require training and supervision to take place within the United States.
According to Lyons, the OPT programme, introduced during George W Bush’s presidency, was originally intended to support only a small number of foreign students seeking temporary work experience before returning home.
“Instead, OPT expanded into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline, with hundreds of thousands of foreign students employed across the United States. As the programme has grown, so too has the fraud,” he said.
Lyons described the alleged abuse of the OPT system as “a blatant attack on the goodwill of the American people”, who had generously opened their education system to foreign students.
(With inputs from PTI)