Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Government Accountability Office says that more should be done to identify risks in a program that allows foreign students to work in the United States after graduation.
- Among the findings: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not assessed fraud risks posed by schools and foreign students involved in the program, and the agency should require more employment information from the schools and students.
- Also, ICE should do more to make sure that the work of the students in the program is related to their studies.
Dive Insight:
As of November 2013, about 100,000 of the roughly 1 million foreign students in the U.S. had been approved for work program, known as Optional Practical Training (OPT). OPT is overseen by ICE, allowing graduates who are in the country on student visas to stay, temporarily, to gain work experience. According to the GAO report, ICE investigators had found cases where those students received recommendations from schools to work outside of their major areas of study.
