State Department Report: Close to 200,000 Foreign Workers are Designated as Students
Jose Nino
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In the academic year of 2022-23, American universities hosted over 1 million international students. However, as the College Fix reported that number features students who had already graduated and are effectively foreign workers, per a State Department report.
The reality is that close to 200,000 foreigners who are ostensibly classified as students are actually members of the workforce. Though these individuals don’t have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, thereby making them cheaper options for businesses to hire.
These figures were released in November in Open Doors, an yearly report from the Institute of International Education, an agency within the State Department agency. The report highlighted how 1,057,188 international students are currently residing in the United States, with 858,395 enrolled in universities and 198,793 taking part in the government’s Optional Practical Training program. This represents an increase of 14,034 from the prior academic year.
On top of that, Hudson Crozier of The College Fix noted that this figure “is more than double the number of OPT workers who were in the U.S. in the 2012-13 school year.”
The IIE confirmed to The College Fix that the OPT workers had already left college when they were counted as “students” but clarified why those individuals are classified as such.
Initially, the OPT program allowed some foreign students to work for an American business for 12 months to receive training in STEM fields. Under the presidential administration of George W. Bush, 17 months were added to the work period. The Obama administration followed up by giving STEM graduates 36 months of OPT as “students.”
Pro-immigration restriction think tank Center of Immigration Studies (CIS) argued that the Open Doors data “downplays” the subsidies migrants receive.
“Every version of the report in prior years was totally silent on this subsidy,” David North of CIS declared in his analysis. “The speakers announcing the report [this month] were equally quiet on this subject.”
North described OPT as “a disguised — and subsidized — foreign worker program.” He pegs the tax break to hove around $1 billion for American businesses “at the expense of our elderly, sick, and unemployed.”
Another CIS researcher noted that students are not supposed to convert their study visas into work permits.
“The F-1 visa is to allow foreign students to obtain an education in the United States, but the expectation is they return to their home countries,” Robert Law said told The College Fix on a previous occasion. “OPT/STEM OPT is the largest guest worker program never passed by Congress; it is an executive branch creation that allows hundreds of thousands of aliens to work in the United States for years in circumvention of [an] established immigration cap.”
Per Open Doors’ numbers, 289,526 enrolled foreign students and OPT workers hail from China, making it the leading country in this study. India came in second place followed up by South Korea with 43,847. 55% of the foreign nationals surveyed in the report were in STEM majors such as computer science, engineering, and math.
The US’s immigration system clearly serves the interests of foreigners not Americans. Yes, the US needs more STEM majors but that problem should be addressed domestically through commonsense educational reforms. This does not require the country to continue importing migrant labor that demographically destroys the country while also lining the pockets of fat cat oligarchs.
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