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Time of India
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Time of India
America may scrap OPT putting Indian talent at risk: Can the US tech economy survive the blow?
In the power corridors of Washington, the Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme is being recast—not as a bridge between global talent and American opportunity—but as a backdoor for job theft. H.R. 2315, a bill with anti-immigrant optics and economic blind spots, seeks to terminate post-study work rights for international students on F-1 visas. Known as the 'Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act of 2023', it was introduced by Republican Congressman Paul Gosar on April 10, 2023, and is still under committee review as of mid-2025. Spearheading the crackdown are voices like Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, who has termed OPT a 'shadow guestworker programme,' and Joseph B. Edlow, newly confirmed USCIS Director, testified that he plans to 'remove the ability for employment authorizations for F‑1 students beyond the time that they are in school. ' For them, OPT is not merely a flawed visa extension—it's a systemic loophole ripe for repeal. But pause the narrative of freeloaders and fraud. Because if OPT disappears, it's not India that will bleed the most. It's America. And not in theory—in payrolls, patents, and productivity. The Numbers: A reality check, straight from SEVIS According to the 2024 SEVIS 'By the Numbers' report (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), 194,554 students were on OPT last year—a 21.1% increase from 2023. 95,384 students were on STEM-OPT (a 24-month extension for tech and science graduates). Indian students accounted for 48% of all STEM-OPT participants—that's nearly 45,800 engineers, coders, analysts, and scientists powering American firms. So, for every two highly-skilled STEM graduates working in the US on OPT extensions, one is Indian. The total Indian share across all OPT categories is conservatively estimated between 25–30%, suggesting roughly 49,000 to 58,000 Indian students are in American workforces right now under OPT. OPT isn't robbing Americans of their jobs: It's sustaining America's tech empire Critics often argue that OPT undercuts US graduates. What they overlook is that America's tech economy runs on global skill, and it is Indian students who often shoulder the lion's share of the load. Consider this: Amazon hired 5,379 OPT students and 6,632 STEM-OPT extension workers in 2024 alone (source: ICE SEVIS Employer Data, 2024 ). Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla follow suit with thousands more hires from the same pool. Citigroup, Oracle, Bloomberg, Qualcomm, NVIDIA are also among top STEM-OPT employers. These are not internships or coffee-fetching gigs. These are roles in AI, cybersecurity, quantum computing, sustainable energy, and algorithmic finance. These are the engines of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. What happens if India loses OPT? Let's be clear—it will hurt Indian students. OPT is their runway to repay loans, gain experience, and build global careers. Estimates suggest that the average Indian student spends $60,000–$100,000 on a US STEM degree. Without OPT, the ROI vanishes. Their post-study pathways collapse—no work experience, no H-1B bridge, no long-term settlement. Over 28% of Indian enrolment dropped year-on-year (Mar 2024–Mar 2025), according to SEVIS data analysed by Boston College's Chris Glass—an early warning of policy impact. But here's the uncomfortable truth: Indian talent will reroute. Indian remittances will stabilise. When America loses OPT, what actually breaks? Not just student dreams—America's tech future, university funding, and innovation pipeline all start to collapse. University Revenue Without OPT, U.S. universities become overpriced diplomas without job prospects. Why would anyone pay $100,000 for a degree that ends in deportation? NAFSA estimates international students (led by Indians) contribute $33 billion to the US economy annually. Kill OPT, and watch that cash vanish. Tech Talent There is a reason why the Business Roundtable, TechNet, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have all opposed H.R. 2315. It's not compassion—it's code. Without Indian data scientists, machine learning engineers, and cloud architects, your next Google update might be 12 months late. Start-up Innovation From Sundar Pichai (Google) to Arvind Krishna (IBM), from scores of MIT PhDs to Carnegie Mellon AI researchers—many began their journey with an F-1 visa and OPT. Remove that step, and you cut off tomorrow's unicorns at the root. OPT isn't a loophole, it's a ladder Those cheering for OPT's end argue it's a 'backdoor to employment.' Well, America never promised citizenship to international students—but it promised opportunity. OPT is not a charity. It is an earned bridge, after two years of exorbitantly priced education, rigorous vetting, and visa scrutiny. The bottom line: Who actually loses? Indian students lose jobs, loans, and peace of mind. America loses competitiveness, labour, and credibility. But while Indian families can pivot to Canada, or Germany's tuition-free STEM degrees, America cannot outsource innovation at will. Without OPT, the US education system becomes a global product with no after-sales service. And if customers walk away, don't blame China or quotas—blame policy cannibalism. Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
Time of India
19-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Why are Edlow and Vaughan calling OPT illegal? Here's the real story
OPT faces mounting legal and political attacks, putting the future of 200,000 international graduates at risk. In the quietly panicked corridors of international education policy, a storm is gathering around the United States' Optional Practical Training (OPT) program—and for once, it's not hyperbole to say that the damage may already be done. The numbers are stark, the policy narrative even starker. According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) SEVIS 2024 report, over 194,554 international students received work authorisation under OPT last year. Of these, a staggering 95,384 secured extensions under the STEM OPT provision. And standing at the centre of this tectonic shift are Indian students, who account for nearly 98,000 of those OPT authorisations during the 2023–24 cycle, as confirmed by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. But now, the very scaffolding of this bridge—from academic promise to professional foothold—is under coordinated assault by voices both influential and ideological. Leading the charge are Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), and Joseph Edlow, the newly confirmed Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Both have testified before Congress in 2025 that OPT is not only legally suspect but structurally dangerous. Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Cardiologists Beg: Take These 4 Ingredients Before Bed to Burn Fat The Healthy Way Learn More Undo by Taboola by Taboola The rhetoric may be wrapped in legalese, but the intent is clear: Dismantle the post-study work rights that have long made U.S. degrees a prized aspiration for international—and particularly Indian—students. What's at stake is more than immigration. It is the erasure of a pipeline that has quietly underwritten America's dominance in global tech and innovation. Edlow and Vaughan 's case against OPT: Congress didn't sign it, so let's burn it At the core of the campaign to dismantle the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program lies a foundational dispute—not merely about visas or foreign labour, but about who gets to define the boundaries of lawful work in postsecondary America. And in this ideological contest, Jessica Vaughan and Joseph Edlow have emerged as the architects of what they frame as a long-overdue correction. Their argument is deceptively simple: OPT is not law—it is regulation. Worse, they claim, it is unregulated regulation, sustained not by statute but by administrative inertia and legal loopholes. In her detailed testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee in June 2025, Vaughan—Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS)—delivered a withering critique of what she called 'the largest unregulated guest worker scheme in the United States.' Drawing from internal data sets provided by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, Vaughan revealed that over 540,000 work authorisations were granted under OPT and CPT (Curricular Practical Training) in FY2023 alone. This, she argued, was not just administrative generosity—it was regulatory anarchy. In her words, OPT had "spawned an industry of diploma mills, fake schools, bogus training programs, and illegal employment." According to her testimony, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP)—the body meant to oversee the legitimacy of these academic affiliations—was too chronically under-resourced to vet the scale of demand. The result, she concluded, was a parallel ecosystem of academic storefronts and training programmes designed not for learning, but for visa preservation and labour substitution. But perhaps her sharpest critique was constitutional in tone. OPT, she reminded the Committee, is not authorised by the US Congress. It was created as an extension of executive rulemaking, first formalised under the Bush administration and later expanded under Obama. 'There has never been a vote in Congress,' Vaughan noted, 'to allow hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates to work on US soil under this program. ' Edlow, a former Trump-era official brought back to restore 'legal fidelity' to immigration enforcement, seconded the legalistic rebuke. In multiple briefings before the Senate and in internal USCIS memoranda from April–June 2025, Edlow contended that the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) makes no provision for post-completion work for F-1 visa holders. "The INA is unambiguous," he said. "Student visas are for study—not for work after graduation. " He took particular aim at the 2023 D.C. Circuit Court ruling, which upheld the legality of OPT and its STEM extension. The decision, Edlow claimed, rested on an 'erroneous reading of statutory intent'—one that unjustifiably enlarged the executive branch's power to define immigration eligibility criteria without congressional consent. In his congressional appearances and in internal DHS documents, Edlow has further proposed reorienting USCIS enforcement priorities. Specifically, he has called for an expanded role for the Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) directorate in vetting OPT applicants and employers—a move that signals a coming compliance-heavy era, where student employment records could be re-audited, revoked, or flagged for deportation if found wanting. Both Vaughan and Edlow converge on the same policy prescription, stated either in soft legalism or hard numbers: The OPT program must either be terminated outright or restricted so severely that it becomes operationally nonviable for most international graduates. In other words, OPT must be stripped of its current utility to ensure it cannot continue under the guise of administrative legitimacy. What really lies beneath Edlow and Vaughan's constitutional and legal arguments? Behind Edlow and Vaughan's polished legal rhetoric lies a deeper mission—one that has less to do with statutes and more to do with reshaping America's relationship with global talent. Woven beneath the testimony is a broader, more ideological belief that international student mobility has been hijacked by corporate interests, and that foreign graduates are now indistinguishable from guest workers, hired to circumvent wage floors, sidestep payroll taxes, and bypass labour market tests that would otherwise favour American graduates. To this end, Vaughan and Edlow's critique is not merely of OPT as policy, but of OPT as economic architecture—an invisible scaffold that supports tech giants, universities, and global talent mobility. For them, removing that scaffold is not disruption. It is restoration. Come, pay, tuition and leave What Edlow and Vaughan propose is more than a policy fix—it is a structural decoupling of education from employability, one that threatens to return the F-1 visa to a narrow, transactional instrument: come, pay tuition, and leave. It is this return to pre-globalisation thinking that most alarms educators and economists alike. And it is this version of 'legal clarity' that could leave hundreds of thousands of students—including the 98,000 Indian graduates currently working under OPT—on the edge of a bureaucratic cliff, with no safety net beyond the 90-day unemployment cap. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here . Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
Time of India
31-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
What is 'sanctuary jurisdiction', how was US list of them made?
Representative Image WASHINGTON: The US government's list of "sanctuary jurisdictions" that includes hundreds of communities, both red and blue, is confounding critics. They have noticed the list included misspellings, communities with small immigrant populations, and those with strong support for cooperation with federal authorities. Jessica Vaughan is director of policy studies at the Centre for Immigration Studies, which favours anti-sanctuary policies and started publishing a list of sanctuary jurisdictions 10 years ago. The centre's list is different from the government's. Vaughan noted that the centre discloses its methodology and frequently updates its list. "That's one thing that I feel is missing from the (government's) list is some documentation as to why they're appearing on the list," she said. The list is part of the Trump administration's efforts to target communities, states and jurisdiction s that it says aren't doing enough to help its immigration enforcement agenda and the promises the president made to deport more than 11 million people living in the US without legal authorization. What are the stakes? The Department of Homeland Security and the US attorney general will send them official notice to the 500 jurisdictions on the list "regarding its defiance of Federal immigration law enforcement and any potential violations of Federal criminal law", according to an executive order from President Donald Trump. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch vàng CFDs với mức chênh lệch giá thấp nhất IC Markets Đăng ký Undo The list could be updated when the administration receives new information, but those that remain on the list could face serious financial consequences, including suspended or terminated federal grants and contracts by the Office of Management and Budget. It is not clear what legal actions the government will pursue. How was the list made? In response to questions Friday about the list, the Department of Homeland security reiterated that it was compiled using a number of factors, including whether the localities identified themselves as sanctuary jurisdictions, how much they complied with federal officials enforcing immigration laws, if they had restrictions on sharing information with immigration enforcement or had any legal protections for people in the country illegally. The agency noted in an email that the list will be updated regularly. But experts said it was difficult to understand the criteria used to make the list. "It seems quite arbitrary because not all of these states or specific jurisdictions have a policy that limits cooperation with ICE," said Nithya Nathan-Pineau, an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Centre. How did communities that support Trump's policies end up on the list? That's unclear. Several communities said they have been outspoken supporters of the president and his stringent immigration policies and do not understand why they have been included. Among them: Shawano County, Wisconsin; Alexandria, Virginia; and Huntington Beach, California. Jim Davel, administrator for Shawano County, thinks the administration may have confused the county's vote in 2021 to become a "Second Amendment Sanctuary County" that prohibits gun control measures with it being a safe haven for immigrants. He said the county has approved no immigration sanctuary policies. What is a sanctuary city? There is no clear definition of a sanctuary jurisdiction, but it is generally understood to apply to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. DHS said it took into account "factors like compliance with federal law enforcement, information restrictions, and legal protections for illegal aliens". The notion of sanctuary dates back to Medieval Europe, when civil law enforcement entities were not allowed to enter churches, Cesar Garcia Hernandez, a professor at Ohio State University's College of Law, explained Friday. The term evolved into the "sanctuary movement" among US churches and other religious institutions that would house Central Americans fleeing civil war in the 1980s. "There there was no legal guarantee of immunity for people who were who were spending their time inside church buildings, but there was policy" that prohibited immigration arrests, Garcia Hernandez said. That changed under the current Trump administration. The Immigrant Legal Resource Centre, a nongovernmental organisation, said that when compiling its own list of sanctuary jurisdictions, it considers how they limit interactions with ICE and federal law enforcement, and how they protect information.
Chicago Tribune
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
What is a ‘sanctuary jurisdiction' and how was the US list of them made?
The U.S. government's list of 'sanctuary jurisdictions' that includes hundreds of communities, both red and blue, is confounding critics. They have noticed the list included misspellings, communities with small immigrant populations, and those with strong support for cooperation with federal authorities. Jessica Vaughan is director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors anti-sanctuary policies and started publishing a list of sanctuary jurisdictions 10 years ago. The center's list is different from the government's. Vaughan noted that the center discloses its methodology and frequently updates its list. Trump administration increases pressure on 'sanctuary jurisdictions' with public listing'That's one thing that I feel is missing from the (government's) list is some documentation as to why they're appearing on the list,' she said. The list is part of the Trump administration's efforts to target communities, states and jurisdictions that it says aren't doing enough to help its immigration enforcement agenda and the promises the president made to deport more than 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal authorization. The Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. attorney general will send them official notice to the 500 jurisdictions on the list 'regarding its defiance of Federal immigration law enforcement and any potential violations of Federal criminal law,' according to an executive order from President Donald Trump. The list could be updated when the administration receives new information, but those that remain on the list could face serious financial consequences, including suspended or terminated federal grants and contracts by the Office of Management and Budget. It is not clear what legal actions the government will pursue. In response to questions Friday about the list, the Department of Homeland security reiterated that it was compiled using a number of factors, including whether the localities identified themselves as sanctuary jurisdictions, how much they complied with federal officials enforcing immigration laws, if they had restrictions on sharing information with immigration enforcement or had any legal protections for people in the country illegally. The agency noted in an email that the list will be updated regularly. But experts said it was difficult to understand the criteria used to make the list. 'It seems quite arbitrary because not all of these states or specific jurisdictions have a policy that limits cooperation with ICE,' said Nithya Nathan-Pineau, an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. That's unclear. Several communities said they have been outspoken supporters of the president and his stringent immigration policies and do not understand why they have been included. Among them: Shawano County, Wisconsin; Alexandria, Virginia; and Huntington Beach, California. Jim Davel, administrator for Shawano County, thinks the administration may have confused the county's vote in 2021 to become a 'Second Amendment Sanctuary County' that prohibits gun control measures with it being a safe haven for immigrants. He said the county has approved no immigration sanctuary policies. There is no clear definition of a sanctuary jurisdiction, but it is generally understood to apply to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. DHS said it took into account 'factors like compliance with federal law enforcement, information restrictions, and legal protections for illegal aliens.' The notion of sanctuary dates back to Medieval Europe, when civil law enforcement entities were not allowed to enter churches, Cesar Garcia Hernandez, a professor at Ohio State University's College of Law, explained Friday. The term evolved into the 'sanctuary movement' among U.S. churches and other religious institutions that would house Central Americans fleeing civil war in the 1980s. 'There there was no legal guarantee of immunity for people who were who were spending their time inside church buildings, but there was policy' that prohibited immigration arrests, Garcia Hernandez said. That changed under the current Trump administration. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a nongovernmental organization, said that when compiling its own list of sanctuary jurisdictions, it considers how they limit interactions with ICE and federal law enforcement, and how they protect information.
Washington Post
30-05-2025
- General
- Washington Post
What is a 'sanctuary jurisdiction' and how was the US list of them made?
The U.S. government's list of 'sanctuary jurisdictions' that includes hundreds of communities, both red and blue, is confounding critics. They have noticed the list included misspellings, communities with small immigrant populations, and those with strong support for cooperation with federal authorities. Jessica Vaughan is director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors anti-sanctuary policies and started publishing a list of sanctuary jurisdictions 10 years ago. The center's list is different from the government's. Vaughan noted that the center discloses its methodology and frequently updates its list.
