Trump Administration Targets “Optional Practical Training” Student Worker Fraud

Earlier this month, immigration officials announced that they had identified a massive amount of fraud in the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, a little-known guest worker program designed to provide hands-on training for foreign students. While the news is yet another notch in the Trump administration’s anti-fraud belt, it is only the first step toward addressing the major underlying problems with OPT itself.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons, the agency has “identified over 10,000 foreign students who claim to be working for highly suspect employers, and that’s just among the top 25 OPT employers.” While only a few thousand students were expected to utilize the program when it was set up under the Bush administration, Lyons explained that OPT has “ballooned into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline with hundreds of thousands of foreign students working in the United States.”

OPT, which is administered by the Department of Homeland Security, is supposed to help F-1 visa holders temporarily work in the United States in jobs related to their field of study. As the Center for Immigration Studies explains, “OPT participants can receive up to 12 months of work authorization, while graduates with qualifying STEM degrees may receive an additional 24-month extension, for a total of up to 36 months of employment authorization after graduation.”

But according to ICE’s recent revelations, the program is rife with fraud. Lyons called the findings the “tip of the iceberg,” saying that his team “discovered empty buildings and locked doors at addresses where hundreds of foreign students are allegedly employed,” according to Fox News.

Vice President JD Vance, who has been overseeing the White House’s anti-fraud task force, heralded the good news. “We will not tolerate foreign nationals abusing our visa system at the expense of the American people,” Vance wrote on X.

Some of the fraudsters were reportedly working low-wage jobs at gas stations, according to immigration expert Mark Krikorian.

But the real problem goes much deeper than foreign students who are lying about where they work – the issue is with the OPT program itself.

OPT is supposed to allow student visa holders to gain work experience that is directly relevant to their degree. For example, someone studying computer science could work for up to three years as a software developer for Microsoft or Apple, as a sort of apprenticeship or paid internship.

Shockingly, the program has never been voted on by Congress nor signed into law by any president. Rather, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama expanded the student visa program via regulatory fiat to allow for backdoor work permits at the behest of Big Tech companies.

As Mark Krikorian with the Center for Immigration Studies explains, the program “has grown to become one of the largest guest worker programs in the country, with hundreds of thousands of participants, even though it was not created by Congress.” He called the program a “magnet for fraud.”

Making matters worse, a May 15 report from Krikorian’s group found that more “students” are working here under OPT than through more well-known guest worker programs such as the H-1B visa program.

Reportedly, “more than 505,000 foreign nationals were participating in OPT in FY 2024,” according to Elizabeth Jacobs with the Center for Immigration Studies. By contrast, around 150,000 foreigners hold H-1B visas.

DHS data on the top abusers of the program will not surprise many well-informed citizens. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Goldman Sachs each employ thousands of foreigners under this program, according to a report citing 2024 DHS data. Universities are also part of the scheme, with the University of California system, Arizona State University, and Harvard University topping the list.

The permits are a sweet deal for massive corporations. For all individuals employed under OPT, employers do not have to pay the nearly eight percent payroll tax that they would pay for hiring an American. Furthermore, the “students” are dependent on employment in order to remain in the country, so companies can work them for long hours and low pay with little recourse.

After a student’s permit runs out, there are always more foreign students with computer science or other STEM backgrounds willing to take the entry-level jobs.

OPT is also likely contributing to unemployment problems for recent college graduates. As many college students graduate this month and begin looking toward their future, they may find themselves competing with an Indian or Chinese student who is supposedly here as a “student” but is in fact a full-time worker abusing the OPT program. Companies are incentivized to hire the foreigner instead of the American.

“Eliminating the OPT program would prove to a generation of young Americans that we care about their job prospects, national security, and their tax dollars,” Gabe Guidarini with Turning Point Action argued. “This is an opportunity to show that we act upon what we say.”

The revelations of fraud should be the beginning of a much more critical examination of OPT by the Trump administration. As millions of American college graduates pack up their apartments and wave goodbye to their college campuses, they should not have to worry about competing with foreigners for those valuable entry-level jobs that help young people get their first step toward prosperity and stability.

Matt Lamb is an AMAC Newsline contributor and associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.