ICE drops ‘uncontrolled’ fraud bombshell involving thousands of foreign students, ‘phantom employees

[libertybele]

ICE drops ‘uncontrolled’ fraud bombshell involving thousands of foreign students, ‘phantom employees’

Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons announced that federal investigators have uncovered more than 10,000 foreign students connected to "suspect employers" as part of another potentially massive fraud scheme, this time involving the federal STEM Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension program.

At a news conference Tuesday, Lyons said the cases uncovered thus far are "just the tip of the iceberg."

OPT is a U.S. immigration program that lets international students on F-1 visas work temporarily in the country in jobs related to their field of study. Lyons said that when the program was first created under the Bush administration and expanded under the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security expected "only a few thousand foreign students would receive training approval before returning home."

"Instead," Lyons said, that OPT "ballooned into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline with hundreds of thousands of foreign students working in the United States."

He added that "as the program size exploded, so has the fraud."...........

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ice-drops-uncontrolled-fraud-bombshell-involving-thousands-foreign-students-phantom-employees

[Bigun]

ICE drops ‘uncontrolled’ fraud bombshell involving thousands of foreign students, ‘phantom employees’

Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons announced that federal investigators have uncovered more than 10,000 foreign students connected to "suspect employers" as part of another potentially massive fraud scheme, this time involving the federal STEM Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension program.

At a news conference Tuesday, Lyons said the cases uncovered thus far are "just the tip of the iceberg."

OPT is a U.S. immigration program that lets international students on F-1 visas work temporarily in the country in jobs related to their field of study. Lyons said that when the program was first created under the Bush administration and expanded under the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security expected "only a few thousand foreign students would receive training approval before returning home."

"Instead," Lyons said, that OPT "ballooned into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline with hundreds of thousands of foreign students working in the United States."

He added that "as the program size exploded, so has the fraud."...........

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ice-drops-uncontrolled-fraud-bombshell-involving-thousands-foreign-students-phantom-employees

If all the fraud was eliminated our budget deficit would disappear and the debt would resolve itself quickly!

[Smokin Joe]

If all the fraud was eliminated our budget deficit would disappear and the debt would resolve itself quickly!

[IsailedawayfromFR]

If all the fraud was eliminated our budget deficit would disappear and the debt would resolve itself quickly!

Or if we simply stopped spending any money in those areas having fraud, it would also go away.

Let the states spend their own money on their own citizens.  Bet they would do a better job of monitoring fraud then as they would more skin in the game.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Like this

https://thefederalist.com/2026/05/13/we-are-going-to-turn-off-the-money-vances-anti-fraud-taskforce-to-make-states-prove-they-prosecute-fraud/

[Bigun]

Like this

https://thefederalist.com/2026/05/13/we-are-going-to-turn-off-the-money-vances-anti-fraud-taskforce-to-make-states-prove-they-prosecute-fraud/