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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is planning greater oversight of colleges and universities that recommend foreign students for work authorization through the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program.
Educational institutions and designated school officials (DSOs) should expect to have greater monitoring, record-keeping and reporting responsibilities in overseeing students working under OPT.
The increased scrutiny follows a U.S. Government Accountability Office investigation into the program, prompted in part by response to the Boston Marathon bombings last year, which identified a need for renewed attention on monitoring foreign students. The GAO’s report made the following recommendations to Immigration and Customs Enforcement:
Under a separate initiative, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), a unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), recently trained its first group of field representatives who began making visits last month to schools that enroll foreign students with F or M visas.
OPT allows foreign students on F-1 visas to obtain temporary authorization for work that is directly related to their major fields of study after graduating from an American college or university. Approximately 10 percent of the roughly 1 million foreign students in the U.S. have been approved for OPT.
BAL Analysis: The GAO report, the training of personnel to visit DSOs, and DHS’ promise to integrate the SEVIS database with other border-control systems are all signs that the government plans to enhance thin oversight and enforcement of foreign students’ legal status and work authorization.
Copyright © 2016 Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP. All rights reserved. Reprinting or digital redistribution to the public is permitted only with the express written permission of Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP. For inquiries please contact copyright@bal.com.
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