Chairman Grassley: Administration Plans to Expand Optimal Practical Training Program ‘Irresponsible and Dangerous’

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked DHS to reconsider regulations that would allow foreign students with degrees in STEM fields up to six years of post-graduation employment under the Optimal Practical Training Program. Sen. Grassley said the proposal is “irresponsible and dangerous considering the Government Accountability Office report issued in March 2014 finding that the program was full of inefficiencies, susceptible to fraud, and that the Department was not adequately overseeing it.”

The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows foreign students to work in the U.S. in their field of study for 12 months after graduation. Foreign graduates from Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs can request an additional work authorization for between 17 and 29 months.

ICE officials briefed Senate Judiciary Committee staff in late May about proposed regulation affecting foreign students. The regulation would:

• Allow foreign students with degrees in STEM fields to receive up to two 24-month extensions beyond the original 12-month period provided under OPT regulations; and
• Authorize foreign graduates of non-STEM U.S. degree programs to receive the 24-month extension of the OPT period, even if the STEM degree upon which the extension is based is an earlier degree and not for the program from which the student is currently.

In a letter, Sen. Grassley asked DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to set aside the regulation since a Government Accountability Office report found the OPT program is vulnerable to fraud in its current form. The report found that foreign students, sometimes aided by their faculty, were acquiring work outside of their field of study, and that, due to a lack of DHS oversight, no one in the federal government knows where tens of thousands of these students are located, who they are working for or what they are doing in the United States.

Sen. Grassley also noted the OPT program is the subject of litigation. He wrote, “As the plaintiffs in the Washington Tech Alliance lawsuit state in their complaint: ‘DHS’s OPT regulations deliberately circumvent the statutory caps on H-1B visas … by allowing aliens who are unable to get an H-1B visa to remain in the United States and work on an F-1 student visa instead.’ By increasing the total amount of time a foreign student may work in OPT after each degree to 3 years – the same amount of time that an H-1B visa would be valid – there is little doubt that the Administration has administratively established a de facto shadow H-1B program, in violation of Congressional intent. OPT is meant to be a temporary training program, not as a bridge to a longer-term work visa or a way for employers to hire cheaper foreign labor in lieu of Americans or foreign workers in visa programs with prevailing wage requirements.“

Read more, including Sen. Grassley’s full letter, in Breitbart News.