MUMBAI: Erstwhile international students, now working in the US and even those currently undergoing Optional Practical Training (OPT), need to be aware of a revised ‘Issue of notice to appear’ policy recently issued by The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Jonathan Wasden, immigration attorney, who has represented several such students in the courts, explained to TOI, “Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – which houses USCIS, has taken its enforcement of the secret fraud findings a step further. According to the new policy they will begin issuing ‘Notices to Appear’ to those with these ‘secret fraud findings’. This begins the deportation process. It can lead to arrest and detention.”
As the international student victims are labelled as guilty of fraud under the secret fraud findings by USCIS of OPT scams, in the light of the revised policy, immigration attorneys state that international students should take immediate legal recourse to clear their names.
International students are eligible for a one-year OPT to gain work experience in the US. Those in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) field get an additional two-year tenure for their OPT. According to the latest Open Doors report for the (2023-2024 academic year), 97,556 Indian students were currently participating in the OPT program.
The modus operandi of the OPT scam is as such: These companies (who incidentally are certified by DHS in the E-Verify system as eligible to hire OPT students) aggressively market consulting jobs to recent graduates on social media platforms. After offering employment they state that some more training is needed and charge for it. The training is of dubious quality and students are not assigned any projects so as to gain work experience (which is a mandatory OPT requirement).
Wasden explains that DHS does not alert the public to the scam. Instead, it raids such companies and seizes employee lists (which includes names of those undergoing OPT). It then methodically began matching names in their system to names on the list.
“In a clear violation of law, USCIS intentionally does not disclose the inadmissibility adjudication or its decision. However, USCIS transmits the adjudication results to Customs and Border Protection and the US consulates. In short, USCIS trusts those agencies to deny admission to the US or visas. “
Immigration attorneys explain that several erstwhile OPT-students were holding H-1B visas and were gainfully employed for several years. On return from a vacation to India, they were told by the consulate that DHS had made them inadmissible to the US, simply because they had worked for a nefarious OPT-company.
Wasden adds that the revised policy memo inadvertently admits that USCIS has been entering fraud findings in secret, which is something they have been denying in court. The revised policy has added another layer of complexity for victims of OPT fraud and it is important for erstwhile international students to remove fraud findings from their records, through a litigation process.