DHS Takes Money from Trust Funds and Gives It to USCIS, Aliens’ Employers, and Some Aliens in a Reverse Double Play: Chance-to-Evers-to-Tinker
By David North on March 14, 2023
In a new move, DHS is taking some funds indirectly from the Social Security and Medicare programs and giving it to USCIS, aliens’ employers, and sometimes to the foreign workers themselves; we are engaged in a bit of financial reverse engineering — DHS does not describe it in the realistic manner used here.
What the agency says in a press release headline is: “USCIS Announces Premium Processing; New Online-Filing Procedures for Certain F-1 Students Seeking OPT or STEM OPT Extensions”.
Starting March 6, USCIS is accepting money ($1,500) to speed decisions (usually approvals) for foreign students and alumni from American universities who have pending I-765 petitions seeking employment authorization in the federally subsidized Optional Practical Training Programs. In these programs, neither the student/alumnus nor his employer must pay the usual payroll taxes unless he has been here for less than five years. The agency calls it “premium processing”.
In the best upper-crust tea party tradition — one must never discuss money in polite society — the press release does not mention the premium processing fee or the fact that this is not only a foreign worker program, it is a federally subsidized one.
https://cis.org/North/DHS-Takes-Money-Trust-Funds-and-Gives-It-USCIS-Aliens-Employers-and-Some-Aliens-Reverse
