The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced a major crackdown on the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, a government initiative that allows foreign students to work temporarily in the country. ICE director Todd M Lyons said in a press conference on Tuesday that the agency discovered irregularities involving 10,000 international students participating in the program.
Lyons explained that when the program was introduced under the George HW Bush administration and expanded under Barack Obama, the Department of Homeland Security expected only a limited amount of international students to receive approval. He said the OPT turned into an unregulated guest worker pipeline with hundreds of thousand foreign students working in the country.
Lyons said, “As the program size exploded, so did the fraud. During the first Trump administration, we uncovered thousands of foreign students claiming employment at work sites that did not exist, blatantly fabricating information provided to DHS. Under the Biden administration, the fraud escalated even further.”
He reported that ICE identified 10,000 students working for suspicious companies, who were among the top 25 OPT employers. Investigators reportedly found empty buidlings with locked doors at addresses where the students were employed. Many of the employers also claimed to operate from the same address but no lease agreement was found for any of them. The companies were reportedly involved in financial red flags, such as breaches of contract and suspicious movement of cash across countries.
Homeland Security Investigators said they visited 18 worksites under the OPT program in Texas where they found employer clusters with several workers sharing job postings on almost identical websites. According to the investigators, the company officials could not answer basic questions and referred to HR persons from India.
Vice President JD Vance applauded the agency, posting on X, “Another great win for our fraud task force. We will not tolerate foreign nationals abusing our visa system at the expense of the American people.”
