Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is stepping up congressional oversight over unscrupulous visa programs that lure foreign students and lead to an excess of visa overstays. He’s also calling for new restrictions on foreign students who apply to U.S. school programs that allow them to work in the United States.
Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter Monday to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen requesting information about the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, and how the department enforces regulations “that prevent spurious businesses from posing as institutions of higher learning.”
Grassley said dozens of schools serve as “visa mills,” which he said, “provide little to no educational benefit to those who pay tuition, instead acting as surreptitious employment agencies for aliens seeking to work in the United States.”
In the letter, Grassley the United States should also be imposing more restrictions on foreigners who are accepted into U.S. schools. Grassley said the current program is expanding such programs, which offer entry-level career placement and are not available to U.S. students. Grassley said those students can take “Optional Practical Training,” or OPT to apply to work in the United States for more than a decade.
Grassley said schools are “exploiting” the lure of STEM jobs in the United States to get foreign students to apply, because they pay full tuition which amounts to far more money than the reduced-tuition payed by in state students. He pointed to MIT and Yale as examples of legitimate schools who are altering programs to attract foreign students.
“Of greater concern is the obvious manipulation of the system by suspect educational institutions,” Grassley wrote in the letter. “For example, Stratford University — a nearly unknown visa mill in Northern Virginia that is reported to have 3,300 students on 4 campuses — has approved more foreign students for OPT STEM extensions than all Ivy League schools combined.”
Grassley sent a list of questions to Nielsen asking about the department’s oversight of the visa program, including the decertification process for suspicious schools and actions immigration officials take to track down students who overstay visas.
