A press conference on May 12 by a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official signalled that the US has opened yet another front in its battle against foreign students it accuses of having misused the country’s visa regime.

An investigation into the potential misuse of a programme that allows foreign students to work in the country temporarily to gain work experience after they graduate found that several fraudulent cases involved Indian students, said Todd Lyons, the acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“We’re uncovering evidence of organised fraud that spans national and international borders,” he said. “This is not accidental. It is deliberate, coordinated and criminal.”

The agency has until now identified more than 10,000 cases of fraud and misconduct under the Optional Practical Training programme that allows foreigners on F-1 visas to work in the US for 12 to 24 months in fields related to their education after completing their courses, Lyons said.

The investigation is still underway.

As of 2024, the US had over 194,000 foreign students on the temporary work programme, according to a report by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

While he did not specify how many cases involved Indians, he said that the investigation had uncovered “multiple examples” of employers listed by Optional Practical Training students that claimed that all management of their firms was overseas in India.

This is a violation of programme norms, which require international students to be under the supervision and training of US companies and employers.

Nationwide investigation

Ever since US President Donald Trump came to power in January 2025, the country’s 1.2 million international students have been in the crosshairs of his campaign against visa fraud.

Since March 2025, the visas of nearly 5,000 students have been revoked, students from at least 19 nations have been unable to study in the US after he placed travel bans on their nations and as of May 2025, at least 12,000 fewer student visas had been issued compared to the previous year.

Indians violating the Optional Practical Training programme were found across the US, from Texas to New Jersey.

One instance involved a firm based in New Jersey that employed more than 150 foreign students on the temporary work visa programme. But company personnel “couldn’t answer basic questions” about the employees they had hired or what they were employed to do.

Federal officers then met one of the students listed with the company. He revealed that he had not worked for the company in more than a year and was “instead being trained by a company based in India”, investigators said.

At the press conference, investigators did not single out firms from other countries for alleged fraud and violations.

As of early 2024, Indian students made up 48% of all those on the Optional Practical Training programme in the US, with more than 143,000 beneficiaries out of 194,554 of those working under this provision from around the world. Students from China ranked second, comprising 20.4% of the beneficiaries.

Under scrutiny

Over the past year, under Trump, the Optional Practical Training programme has come under repeated attack. Last year, after thousands of visa revocations and cancellations in the wake of student protests against Israeli atrocities in Gaza and heightened immigration crackdown, the administration added an item to its agenda: ending, or at least restricting, Optional Practical Training for foreign students, especially those in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, Scroll.in previously reported.

Since then, lawmakers in the US have gone back and forth on the programme. While some have been vocal about protecting one of the strongest incentives for foreign students to choose American universities, others have backed efforts to abolish it or limit it.

In November, Republican senator from Missouri Eric Schmitt wrote to the US Department of Homeland Security describing the programme a “cheap-labour pipeline for big business”. He praised the administration’s commitment to an “America First immigration policy” and called for the programme to be overhauled.

“The Trump administration has done more to combat the rampant abuse of our immigration system than any other administration in my lifetime,” he wrote in the three-page letter. “Considering this abuse, I formally request the Department of Homeland Security conduct a thorough review of the OPT programme to begin the process of either reforming or ending OPT.”

Schmitt received a response in January. Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security at the time, confirmed that the agency would reevaluate the programme to ensure it “appropriately serves US labour market, tax, and national security interests”.

‘Blatant attack’

It is not clear what exactly prompted the agency’s investigation into Optional Practical Training fraud. According to Lyons, the agency has focused on this “rampant” issue “over the past year”.

“This fraud is not victimless,” he said. “It is a blatant attack on the goodwill of the American people who generously allow foreign nationals access to our education system.”

He added: “If you are an employer or foreign student engaged in fraud against the United States, you are advised to return home or surrender immediately.”

India’s Ministry of External Affairs has not yet commented on the investigation and its findings.