Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) is urging President Donald Trump to end the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which offers corporations a tax break if they hire foreign students out of college over American graduates, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields.
The letter, obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, is addressed to Trump’s senior adviser, Stephen Miller, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem — asking them to take steps to end the OPT program.
“This program was created by bureaucrats to evade immigration limits set by law, and it offers employers a tax break to replace American workers with foreign labor,” Banks writes:
OPT authorizes international students to work in the United States for up to one year after graduation for each degree they receive from an institution of higher education. STEM graduates are authorized to work in the U.S. for up to three years. The program is not authorized by Congress. It was established and has been maintained entirely by Deep State bureaucrats. [Emphasis added]
Despite OPT’s lack of political legitimacy, it has dramatically reshaped America’s foreign guest worker program. Nearly 500,000 foreign workers hold OPT status and most of them work in STEM fields. More than one-third of international students in the United States have work authorization, primarily through OPT. [Emphasis added]
There are nearly as many OPT holders as there are H-1B holders, yet OPT lacks even the minimal safeguards of the H-1B program. OPT permits are completely uncapped, lack a minimum wage floor, and come with no requirement that employers attempt to fill positions with American workers before hiring foreign workers. Employers actually get a 15% discount for hiring an OPT holder, as both employers and OPT workers are generally exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes. [Emphasis added]
Banks also notes that American graduates in STEM fields today are struggling in the labor market, as companies hire foreign students through the OPT program and secure a 15 percent tax break because employers do not have to pay FICA taxes for OPT hires.
“The OPT system incentivizes employers to pass over American graduates and hire foreign guest workers, especially in STEM fields — and that’s exactly what has happened,” Banks writes:
Today, one-third of computer science graduates and half of computer programming graduates are unemployed six months after graduation. Many large tech companies complain about a shortage of workers, but that could not be further from the truth. In 2023, American colleges graduated 134,000 American citizens or green card holders with computer science degrees. That same year, the federal government handed out work permits to 110,000 foreign guest workers in computer occupations. [Emphasis added]
Banks says the OPT program is also a national security risk because of the large influx of Chinese students that it funnels into the U.S. labor market every year.
“One out of four OPT holders come from the People’s Republic of China,” Banks writes. “At Columbia University, where radicalism has become a public safety risk, nearly twenty percent of the student body holds an OPT permit.”
Banks asks Miller and Noem to ensure that regulators end the OPT program, as it was never approved or authorized by Congress. At the very least, Banks says he wants to see the program capped and a wage floor set from $90,000 to $115,000.
“Corporations should also be required to follow a set procedure for attempting to hire American graduates before hiring an OPT worker and should pay the same Medicare and Social Security taxes on those workers that they pay for their other employees,” Banks writes.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Joseph Edlow has suggested that companies are using the OPT program to subvert H-1B visa caps.
“[The OPT program] has been one of the largest programs used to get around H-1B [visa] requirement caps, to hire aliens who are graduating with STEM degrees in a way that makes me concerned that the U.S. students coming out of the same universities are not necessarily able to find [jobs],” Edlow told Breitbart News in August.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter here.
The post Exclusive: Sen. Jim Banks Asks Trump to End OPT Program Favoring Foreigners for U.S. Jobs Over American Graduates appeared first on Breitbart.
