Senator Urges Trump to End Foreign Student Work Permit Program

WASHINGTON — A Republican senator is calling on President Donald Trump to eliminate a major work authorization program for foreign students, arguing it is hurting American job prospects and raising national security concerns.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said in a letter to the president that the Optional Practical Training program, known as OPT, allows hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates to compete with U.S. workers for jobs after completing their studies.

“These foreign student work permits not only harm the job prospects of recent college graduates, but are also abused by and create a serious national security risk from a self-declared enemy nation — Communist China,” Scott wrote.

The senator said recent college graduates have faced increasing difficulty in the job market in recent years. “In the past, recent graduates had a lower unemployment rate than the general population, but since 2020, this has no longer been the case,” he said.

He pointed to particular challenges among science and technology graduates. “The jobless rate for recent graduates with computer engineering degrees is nearly double the general unemployment rate,” Scott said, adding that unemployment among computer science graduates is “over 50% higher than the general jobless rate.”

Scott argued that the OPT program is contributing to those challenges by expanding the pool of job seekers. He said more than 500,000 student visa holders currently have OPT work permits, which allow them to remain in the United States and work after graduation.

The senator also raised concerns about national security, citing warnings that the program could be exploited for espionage or technology transfer. He said the system “is currently being used by government actors from countries such as China as a means of conducting espionage and technology transfer.”

According to Scott, more than 33,000 Chinese nationals are participating in the STEM extension of OPT, which allows them to remain in the country for extended periods similar to H-1B visa holders. Many of those individuals work in universities and major technology companies, where they may have access to sensitive research and intellectual property, he said.

“We cannot continue opening the door to an enemy nation that will happily use our own research against us,” Scott added.

Scott also questioned the legal basis of the program, arguing that it was created through regulation rather than statute. “The OPT program should not exist; it is a purely regulatory creation with no statutory basis,” he wrote, citing provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that define student visas as “solely” for education.

He further criticized the STEM extension of the program, describing it as a workaround to bypass limits on H-1B visas set by Congress.

The senator said he supports reported efforts by the Trump administration to review or tighten the program. He pointed to a Department of Homeland Security statement indicating it plans to amend existing regulations to address fraud and national security concerns while protecting U.S. workers.

Scott said he is “eager to see this rule language” and reiterated his support for measures aimed at “protect American jobs and American families.” (Source: IANS)