H-1B visa: Congressman seeks to kill OPT work permit for foreign students

Name of Republican Congressman's bill is a response to a pro-immigration bill by Bay Area Democrat Zoe Lofgren.

An Arizona Congressman plans to introduce a bill to end a federal government program — widely used as a pathway to the H-1B visa — that lets foreign students and graduates of U.S. schools work in this country for up to three years.

Republican Paul Gosar expects to introduce to the House of Representatives within two weeks the “Fairness for High-Skilled Americans Act of 2019” to kill the Optional Practical Training program, his office said Friday.

The OPT program grew 400 percent in the decade after the government in 2008 boosted the amount of time students and graduates in science, technology and math fields could stay in the U.S. and work, Pew Research reported last year. San Jose and San Francisco are among the nation’s top destinations for graduates in the OPT program, Pew found. In recent years, the OPT program surpassed the H-1B as the largest source of new temporary immigrant workers deemed to be highly skilled, according to Pew.

Gosar’s proposed bill — first spotted by Bloomberg Law — would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to ban work under the OPT or any successor program without an act of Congress. His office said he also plans to send to President Donald Trump, within two weeks, a letter asking him to eliminate the OPT via executive order.

The title of Gosar’s proposed bill is a response to a bill introduced in February from the other side of the aisle, Gosar’s office said. California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) sponsored the “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019,” which would scrap the per-country cap on employment-based immigrants and increase the per-country limit for family-sponsored immigrants.

The OPT essentially extends F-1 education visas for foreign college and university students so they can work during or after school. The program’s base-level permit lasts a year, but a “STEM extension” allows participants to spend an additional two years working in the U.S.

Pew found that between 2004 and 2016, almost 1.5 million foreign graduates of U.S. colleges and universities have been allowed to work under the OPT, with 53 percent specializing in STEM fields.

Growth of the OPT program slowed in 2017, Pew said in a different report. Though a record 276,500 foreign graduates received work permits under the OPT program that year, up from 257,100 in 2016, enrollment in the program grew by 8 percent in 2017, compared to 34 percent the year before, the largest decline in growth rate since 2004, Pew reported.

Congressman Gosar’s push to cut the OPT program follows furor over the H-1B. That visa, intended for jobs requiring specialized skills, is heavily relied upon by major Silicon Valley tech firms, which lobby for an increase to the annual 85,000 cap on new visas. But critics point to reported abuses by outsourcers and argue that the H-1B is used to supplant American workers and drive down wages with cheaper foreign labor.

The Trump administration has dramatically increased the denial rate for H-1B visa applications, with outsourcers placing foreign workers in U.S. jobs appearing to bear the brunt of the rejections. The administration has also promised to scrap a program that allows employment for H-4 visa-carrying spouses of H-1B workers on track for green cards.