H-1B Visa: MAGA targets OPT for foreign students as optics of H-1B changes |

TOI correspondent from Washington: MAGA nativists are taking aim at the OPT (Optional Practical Training) program that helps foreign students and graduates, many from India, stay back in the US to gain work experience, even as the optics surrounding the H-1B guest worker visa is changing rapidly.
After a fierce campaign against the H-1B visa program that has forced pledges from the incoming Trump White House to review and reform it on grounds it is being misused to replace American workers, MAGA hardliners are putting the OPT, seen as a precursor to H-1B, under the lens.
Typically, foreign students who come to the US on an F1 visa are eligible to participate in OPT after their first academic year and remain in the US — for up to three years in case of STEM graduates — to gain work experience. MAGA’s “America First” hardliners are now arguing that OPT was originally intended as a short term work permit, but it has now “evolved into a tool to secure US jobs and a pathway to for securing long-term work visas like the H-1B.”
“It was never meant as a permanent immigration pathway, but rather a short-term opportunity for skill development…Employers saw OPT workers as desperate, willing to do anything for H-1B sponsorship before their permit expired,” the nativist US tech workers coalition said on Sunday, calling it “the largest guest worker program killing jobs for new American college grads.”
Many foreign students, particularly those from India, come to study in the US on the premise that they will get on OPT to gain work experience. In many cases, they transition on to H1-B visas during or nearing conclusion of the OPT period, giving them up to nine years in the US. In that time, some manage to get green cards and eventually become US citizens.
According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, in calendar year 2023, there were 1.49 million F-1 and M-1 (vocational training) students and recent graduates in the United States. Twenty-three percent of those (344,686) were authorized to work via OPT. MAGA hardliners are now arguing that OPT is H-1B without Congressional approval and it needs to be canned because it is “killing jobs for new American college grads.”
Killing OPT would effectively mean foreign students would have to exit the US after graduation without the benefit of gaining work experience in the country, a prescription that would likely drastically reduce foreign students coming to the US.
The OPT program dates back to 1947, when regulations provided that foreign students may work “in cases where employment for practical training is required or recommended by the school” and approved by immigration officials. To participate in OPT, a student must get approval from the school/ college/ university and then file an application for employment authorization with the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
There is no limit on the number of F-1 or M-1 nonimmigrants who may participate in OPT. The vast majority (98%-99%) of OPT participants are in F-1 status.
Some US policymakers have long argued for restricting or eliminating the OPT program, maintaining that it operates as a closet foreign worker program without congressional approval, displaces US students and recent graduates, and is susceptible to national security risks. Others have argued that OPT should be continued or expanded because it allows educated foreign nationals to contribute to the American economy and makes the US a more attractive destination for foreign students, who also bolster the finances of US colleges and universities.
In fact, the OPT program, which originally allowed a one-year work stint in the US, was extended by successive Republican and Democratic dispensations. In 2008, the Bush Administration extended the maximum period of OPT from 12 months to 29 months for F-1 students who had completed a degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). In 2016, the Obama Administration further extended it to 36 months for those with STEM degrees.
Both Administrations cited the economic, cultural, and academic contributions of foreign students, as well as national security concerns related to US economic and technological competitiveness, as justification for the extensions.
But MAGA nativists, riding on their campaign against H-1B, are now saying “nyet’ in an effort to nix the OPT, blindsiding the US academia which values foreign students both as a financial and academic resource.