{"id":25385,"date":"2022-02-03T13:09:22","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T18:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=25385"},"modified":"2022-02-03T13:09:23","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T18:09:23","slug":"biden-okays-more-foreign-stem-workers-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2022\/02\/03\/biden-okays-more-foreign-stem-workers-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Following the \u2018Science,\u2019 DHS Opens More Jobs to Foreign Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The largest guest-worker program in America\u2019s immigration system is getting bigger. Skirting regulatory processes, the Department of Homeland Security<\/a> (DHS) announced last month that even more jobs will be open to foreign nationals through Optional Practical Training<\/a> (OPT). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expanding the subsidized student employment program is a lose-lose proposition that further disadvantages U.S. workers and comes at the expense of programs for the elderly and sick, and job opportunities for qualified American workers, says David North<\/a> of the Center for Immigration Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 500,000 foreign students are currently employed through OPT. Though the program is riddled with fraud<\/a>, President Joe Biden last year scotched efforts to step up regulation of the largely unsupervised\u00a0system never approved by Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, by administrative fiat<\/a>, Biden & Co. are expanding OPT by adding 22 new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) employment categories, ranging from Anthrozoology and \u201cData Analytics, Other\u201d to Cloud Computing and Climate Science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While most\nappear to be legitimate occupations, DHS gives foreign students an inside track\nto all of them because their work is cut rate. Employers are exempt from\npayroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, saving them $4,000 or\nmore per student hire, but shortchanging two essential programs for Americans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweetening\nthe pot for foreign students \u2013 with colleges rushing to reclassify non-STEM\ndegrees as STEM \u2013 DHS grants aliens in STEM jobs a second year of employment\n(and an extension of legal residency) via OPT. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

North\noffers a modest solution: Open more jobs for American college grads by limiting\nalien eligibility to the top half of their graduating class, and, of course,\nremoving the unnecessary tax break. \u201cThe current OPT program can be used to\nsubsidize jobs that go to an alien who has managed to scrape through some\nmarginal, unaccredited, for-profit college,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Miano<\/a>, a lawyer and former computer science professor who has written about workplace abuses<\/a>, likes the idea. But he\u2019s not holding his breath. \u201cDHS worked in secret to make these changes \u2014 the same way STEM OPT was created in the first place. This is how democracy dies in darkness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The largest guest-worker program in America\u2019s immigration system is getting bigger. Skirting regulatory processes, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced last month that even more jobs will be open to foreign nationals through Optional Practical Training (OPT). Expanding the subsidized student employment program is a lose-lose proposition that further disadvantages U.S. workers and comes<\/p>\n

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