Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the lead Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked the Biden administration why employer data was omitted from a recent annual report on our nation’s student visa programs.
Foreign students are permitted to enter the US with student visas to pursue full-time academic studies for a limited period of time.
Post-graduate students may be permitted to extend their student visas 12-24 months if they are temporarily employed in the United States in a job or career that is ostensibly “directly related” to their “major area of study”.
Grassley has long raised concerns about fraud and abuse within this extended student visa program. In March 2018, he flagged “visa mills” and fraudulent companies that provide fake employment offers to foreign students so they can meet employment requirements, extend their visas, and remain in this country after graduation.
Grassley says ICE omitted key data that is used to check for fraud from 2020 reports about the student visa programs.
To its credit, the Trump Administration undertook an effort to increase transparency surrounding the [work] programs and make more data about the programs publicly available.
That is why I was shocked to see that, without explanation, the Biden Administration failed to include any data related to [practical training program] employers in [data reports about the student visa programs].
Sen. Chuck Grassley, letter to Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Grassley called for answers about the omission and steps to remedy it.
Click here to view Senator Grassley’s letter in pdf format
The letter appears in full below:
Senator Grassley has probed many areas over the years always asking great questions of the Fed. Does he ever get any answers?
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it’s not easy not to become cynical during these trying times, but Grassley has a high WYSIWYG-factor and is very active in his oversight role. someone needs to ask these questions, regardless of the limping political system, and he’s good at it.