MAGA Losing Patience With Visa Program That Incentivizes Hiring of Foreign Students

Some Republicans and immigration hawks are demanding that the Trump administration finally end a visa program that incentivizes employers to hire foreign students.

The Optional Practical Training program, created in 1992, allows foreign students to remain in the United States to work for nearly four years after graduation. Employers receive a tax break for hiring foreign graduates under the program, which some say gives foreign nationals an advantage over U.S. citizens. 

“F” student visa holders, including OPT graduates, are considered nonresident aliens for their first five calendar years in America. For those years, their wages are exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes—for both the employee and the employer.

While the Department of Homeland Security has the authority to end the program by issuing a new rule, President Donald Trump’s administration has not publicly begun the rulemaking process, leading some conservative members of Congress to propose their own bills to end the program. Immigration hawks have supported the administration’s tough border policies but believe the OPT program should be a major priority as well. 

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, thinks Trump has the philosophy of “legal good, illegal bad,” which conflicts with some Republicans who want to limit legal immigration. 

“He isn’t where the next generation of Republican policymakers are, like JD, like Sen. Schmitt, like Brandon Gill in the House, who are actual restrictionists, and acknowledge that numbers themselves are too high. It’s not just a problem of illegal immigration,” he said.

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“I think one of the places you see the president not being a restrictionist is in the relatively limited action, so far, that’s been taken against OPT,” he said.

Tension Over OPT

Many in the MAGA base fear U.S. citizens losing job opportunities to foreign graduates. 

“It makes you mad,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told the Daily Signal. “We all pay our taxes, and then we create incentives for our companies in our country to hire foreign workers.”

“We have so many Americans that don’t have jobs,” he said, calling for an end to the program. “This should happen today, one, to help Americans get jobs, and number two, we got to get rid of this for the fraud. Number three, we’ve got a lot of people here from Communist China, they’re spying on us and stealing things from our companies.”

Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, says the program “is the gateway drug of our scam ‘legal’ immigration system” because “it allows corporations to hire an unlimited number of foreigners rather than American citizens.”

Kevin Lynn, founder of an organization representing U.S. tech workers, said the Department of Homeland Security should have ended the program in the first few weeks of the administration. 

“The problem is we have a lot of pressure from the tech firms,” Lynn said. “These guys have all set up shop in Washington, D.C. They have the president’s ear, and this is one of the things that they like.” 

The White House said the president’s immigration policy supports the American people.

“President Trump’s top priority has always been and will always be doing what’s best for the American people,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Signal. “Every element of his policy agenda, including his immigration policy, reflects that priority.”

She cited the president’s moves to restrict travel from corrupt countries, ensure access to quality jobs for Americans, prevent abuse of the immigration system, enforce immigration law, and deport illegal aliens.

“This is the commonsense agenda that the American people elected him to enact,” she said.

What’s the Current State of OPT?

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a January letter to Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., regarding the program that the agency was “reevaluating whether the current regulatory framework—including the scope and duration of practical training—appropriately serves U.S. labor market, tax, and national security interests and remains aligned with congressional intent.” 

However, Noem’s replacement, former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, has not updated the administration’s stance on the OPT program.

“Under Secretary Mullin, DHS is laser focused on its mission of making America safe again. DHS continues to arrest the worst of the worst, deliver the most secure border in American history, and stop drugs from pouring into our communities,” a spokesperson for the agency told the Daily Signal in a statement.

Rosemary Jenks, co-founder of the Immigration Accountability Project, believes there are many “experienced policy people at DHS who know exactly what the impact of OPT is.” Still, she said it’s more likely that Congress will act first.

“I don’t have any indication that the administration is planning to end it, but obviously there are several bills in Congress that would end it,” she told the Daily Signal.

“[DHS] could have done it on day one if they had wanted to, and they obviously haven’t,” Jenks added. 

Progress in Congress

Members of Congress have introduced measures to end or pause the program.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced the 2026 American White-Collar Worker Jobs Act, which would eliminate OPT. Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., introduced the End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026, which would halt the program. 

Crane said his bill would halt visa abuses for three years and enact reforms when the program resumes. 

“Congress should do everything in its power to prioritize the interests of American citizens, not the profit margins of massive corporations,” he told the Daily Signal.

“By ending Optional Practical Training, codifying the $100,000 H-1B fee, and implementing additional commonsense changes, we can stop the displacement of hardworking Americans once and for all,” he added.