Thousands of foreign students could be forced to leave the United States if a challenge to an obscure federal program is not resolved in the next few weeks.
The program, Optional Practical Training, has become the latest flash point in the contentious debate over immigration.
It just might be the biggest controversy you’ve never heard of — even if you’re on a college campus.
Here’s a quick rundown of the program, and why colleges ought to care if it is curtailed: Optional Practical Training, or OPT, allows some students and recent graduates of American colleges who are in the United States on student visas to extend their stay temporarily in order to gain work experience related to their field of study. And while most Americans might not be aware of it, the program is popular with international students. In fact, 12 percent of the nearly one million student-visa holders aren’t studying at all; they’re on OPT.
‘OPT lived underneath the radar for years. Now it’s been brought into the spotlight.’
The program has existed for almost a quarter of a century, but in 2008, under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security modified it to permit graduates in certain science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors to stay in the United States for as long as 29 months, up from 12 months, arguing that there was a shortage of skilled workers in those fields. President Obama later added to the number of majors that qualified for the so-called STEM extension.
But a group of high-tech workers challenged the extension in court two years ago, charging that Optional Practical Training was nothing but a jobs program in disguise and that it was stealing opportunities from Americans. In August a federal judge sided with the workers on procedural grounds, saying that the government had not followed its own rule-making procedures in expanding the program.
“OPT lived underneath the radar for years,” says John M. Miano, who represented the workers in the case, Washington Alliance of Technology Workers v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “Now it’s been brought into the spotlight.”
In Limbo
The judge stayed her decision for six months to avoid, she said, disrupting the lives of the 34,000 visa-holders in the extended program and to give the Homeland Security Department time to put a new rule in place.
Now, though, the Obama administration says it won’t be able to meet the February 12 deadline, citing, in part, an “unprecedented” 50,500 public comments on a draft rule published last fall — 2.5 times as many comments as on any other regulation proposed by the agency. It has asked the judge, Ellen Segal Huvelle of the U.S. District Court here, to extend the deadline three more months.
That’s left students on OPT, or those thinking of applying for the STEM extension, in limbo.
The University of Georgia has 315 students on OPT, about 60 of them on the extension. Ashley Johnson, an international-student adviser at Georgia, plans to hold a workshop on the proposed changes this week, although she admits, “I really don’t know what I’ll say.”
Still, she is going ahead with the session, she says, “to manage students’ expectations and hear their frustrations.”
Those frustrations are apparent in many of comments on the proposed rule. Huixiang Chen, a Chinese Ph.D. student at the University of Florida, called the possibility that the extension could be rescinded a “huge disaster.” He noted that he could have earned his computer-science degree in Canada or Hong Kong but that the option for on-the-job training had tipped the scales in favor of coming to the United States.
‘A Precipitous Fall’
So far, educators say there is little sign that the uncertainty around the program is affecting foreign enrollments, but many think that could change if a new rule can’t be put in place before the judge’s stay expires. Though Americans may be unfamiliar with OPT, many international students like Mr. Chen seek out a “package” of an American degree and work experience, says Rahul Choudaha, an expert on global-student trends. The students say it can help them get a better job in their home country — or stay in the United States.
‘Attracting highly qualified foreign students is critical to the life blood of top universities.’
If the STEM extension ends, Mr. Choudaha says he expects “a quick reaction, a precipitous fall” in international applications, particularly from countries, like India, where many students come to the United States to seek professional degrees.
Such a drop-off could be trouble for American colleges, which have come to rely on foreign students both for tuition dollars and as a key source of talent in certain degree programs, especially in the sciences.
“Attracting highly qualified foreign students is critical to the life blood of top universities,” says Ian R. Macdonald, head of the immigration practice at Greenberg Traurig, a law firm that represents colleges and companies. American colleges could find themselves losing a share of the international-student market to countries that have made it easier for graduates to stay and work.
Waving a ‘Magic Wand’
A dozen higher-education associations, including the American Council on Education and Nafsa: Association of International Educators, signed a letter supporting the new rule, which would further expand the time science and engineering graduates can work in the United States, to 36 months.
The groups have some reservations about the regulation as drafted — for one, it would require staff members in colleges’ international offices to review students’ OPT plans as if “they were academic advisers or labor lawyers, which they’re not,” says Craig Lindwarm, director of congressional and governmental affairs at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. But in general the associations, including the APLU, advocate for the rule’s swift adoption.
‘There are 100,000 jobs out there that U.S. residents would have.’
On the other side are immigration foes who view the STEM extension as an end run around limits placed on the number of visas available for skilled workers, which are known as H1-B’s. President Obama, and President Bush before him, failed to get Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, so instead they’ve “used their magic wand and converted alumni into college students,” says David North, a fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports restrictions on immigration.
Asked how a program for foreign students harms American workers, Mr. North, who opposes OPT broadly, not just the STEM program, says, “There are 100,000 jobs out there that U.S. residents would have — that’s quantifiable enough for me.”
But Heather Stewart, director of immigration policy and counsel for Nafsa, says she’s disappointed that international students have been dragged into a “virulent” debate over immigration. “It saddens me,” she says.
Karin Fischer writes about international education, colleges and the economy, and other issues. She’s on Twitter @karinfischer, and her email address is karin.fischer@chronicle.com.
