A federal plan that for years has provided special privileges to employers who hire foreigners instead of qualified Americans has been put in a bull’s-eye in a new congressional plan.
The move comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently delivered a bombshell, that federal investigators had found more than 10,000 foreign students linked to “suspect employers” in what could be a massive fraud.
At issue is the federal STEM Optional Practical Training extension program.
Federal officials confirmed that program lets international students on F-1 visas work temporarily in the country in positions in their field of study. But it has, they charged, “ballooned into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline” with hundreds of thousands of foreign students taking U.S. jobs.
The fraud apparently comes partly from the fact some of the “employers” appear to be fake.
Now Fox News is reporting the situation has prompted Republicans in Congress to address the problem.
Under current law, employers are exempted from paying Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes for foreigners, while they must pay those for American employees.
That creates an incentive to bypass Americans looking for work and hire foreigners.
It is Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., who now has proposed “OPT Fair Tax Act,” to eliminate that unfair incentive.
He would demand employers pay the same taxes for foreigners as for American workers.
He said that “helps create a more level playing field for American graduates entering the workforce.”
In an interview with Fox News Digital, he said, “Americans should not be put at a disadvantage because Washington created a loophole that favors hiring foreign workers over qualified U.S. citizens.”
There’s already a companion bill in the Senate, proposed by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has confirmed in addition to the “suspect” employers,” there are “phantom employees” who obtained work authorization through OPT but never actually showed up for work.
Grothman explained that according to figures from the Institute for Progress, between fiscal years 2017 and 2022 there was an average of approximately 330,000 students in OPT each year.
That organization estimated that eliminating the tax exemption would increase federal revenue by between $27 billion and $36 billion over a 10-year period.
