MAGA politician and Representative Paul Gosar (Arizona) has written a letter to the White House to curb the OPT (Optional Practical Training) program. He has called the program “badly flawed” and said that it should be eliminated. In his letter, Gosar said that the Trump administration “should not be incentivizing foreign employees over Americans.”Writing to DHS secretary Kristi Noem and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Gosar said: “We are writing to illuminate the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Optional Practical Training (OPT) guest worker program that was never authorized by Congress and broadly expanded by the Obama Administration. Americans have never been more ready to be put first. As President Donald J. Trump works diligently to deliver on the America First promise to our nation, we encourage you to identify OPT as a program that is dangerously unauthorized, abused, and costly to the American taxpayer.”Other than talking about how the OPT program was pushed by previous administrations and costs the American taxpayer money, Gosar said that it was never authorized by Congress: “It circumvents the H-1B visa cap set by Congress by allowing aliens to overstay their F-1 student visas to work in STEM fields for up to three years in the U.S. if they completed just one year at an institution of higher education in the country.” He claimed that the OPT program is “paying cheaper wages for aliens and putting American students last.”Gosar then provided a solution for ending the program through the president’s power. He said: “OPT was created by a pen and can be terminated by the President’s pen. We encourage you, as the immigration advisors to the President, to swiftly terminate the OPT program so Congress can do its part to make the President’s action permanent.”Gosar said that the program is a threat to national security and robbing native Americans: “OPT strips opportunities from American students to reward businesses who employ foreign labor through lower wages and little to no benefits. F-1 visas are intended for foreign students to study in the U.S., not to replace Americans in the workplace.”He ended by saying, “We simply cannot afford to let OPT taint its success.”
What is the OPT program?
The OPT program allows international F-1 students in the US to gain temporary work experience directly related to their major, either before or after graduation, for up to 12 months, with a 24-month STEM extension for science/tech/engineering/math graduates. It also serves as a common pathway for students to gain experience before later applying for an H-1B work visa.What is the H.R. 2315?Gosar said: “H.R. 2315,the Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act, will permanently prohibit this reckless program and putAmericans first.”
