DHS Enhances Optional Practical Training Program in STEM Fields

Last week the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a final rule to strengthen and enhance the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program for international students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, allowing students from accredited schools the option to work in the US for up to three years after graduation. The final rule replaces the existing 2008 interim final rule, and amends the current regulations at 8 C.F.R. parts 214 and 274a, regarding OPT for F-1 nonimmigrant students who have completed a STEM degree. The rule, which received more than 50,000 comments, the most in DHS history, will officially go into effect Tuesday, May 10, 2016.

“The new rule for STEM OPT will allow international students with qualifying degrees to extend the time they participate in practical training, while at the same time strengthening oversight and adding new features to the program,” Lou Farrell, director of the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) said in the press release.

The final rule, part of Obama’s executive action proposals, increases the STEM OPT extension from the current seventeen months to twenty-four months, and also includes the following enhancements and protections:

• Only students who earned a degree from a school accredited by a U.S. Department of Education-recognized accrediting agency and certified by SEVP may apply for a STEM OPT extension.

• Participating students who receive an additional qualifying degree from an accredited college or university can apply for a second STEM OPT extension.

• Participating students can use a previously-earned qualifying degree to apply for a STEM OPT extension. The prior degree must not have already formed the basis of a STEM OPT extension and must be from a school that is both accredited by a U.S. Department of Education-recognized accrediting agency and certified by SEVP at the time of the student’s STEM OPT application. The student’s most recent degree must also be from an accredited and SEVP-certified institution.

• Employers participating in STEM OPT must incorporate a formal training program that includes concrete learning objectives with proper oversight.

• Employers and students must report material changes in their training program.

• To guard against adverse effects on U.S. workers, terms and conditions of a student’s training opportunity – such as duties, hours, and compensation – must be on par with U.S. workers in similar positions in the same geographic area of employment. Additionally, the student must not replace a full-time, part-time, temporary or permanent U.S. worker.

• Students must work a minimum of 20 hours per week per employer to qualify.

• Students are permitted a limited period of unemployment during the initial period of post-completion OPT and the STEM OPT extension.

• All STEM OPT employers must participate in DHS’ E-Verify program.

As BuzzFeed points out, the new regulation is meant to attract high-demand tech and engineering talent to the US, and is beneficial for not only foreign students in STEM fields after graduation but also the American universities that recruit them. Since the vast majority of foreign students pay full tuition, without relying on institutional scholarships or even federal student loans, foreign students are important sources of revenue for many American colleges. The influx of foreign students in the US last year was at the highest growth rate in thirty-five years.

“This extension is absolutely going to help colleges in the competition for the limited pool of international students [that want] a top-flight education in an advanced industrial economy,” Bill Stock, the incoming president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), said in BuzzFeed.

“As a kid, you have this craze of going to the U.S. to study,” Sapan Patel, an Indian student who graduated in 2012 with a master’s degree from NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, told BuzzFeed. “But the worry and stress of getting a job in the U.S., to have that hanging over your head, that scares you.” Because of the uncertain and difficult visa process, Patel said, “some of my friends might decide to go to Canada, where getting a work permit and becoming a citizen is much easier, or to Australia.”

Along with the rule’s official publication, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), which monitors international students and also certifies schools and programs, launched a STEM OPT Hub on DHS’ Study in the States. This hub includes resources for students, designated school officials, and employers.

Little Manhattan

Little Manhattan by Yutaka Sone.

Yutaka Sone, who lives and works in Los Angeles, is an incredible artist. He is known for creating models ranging from absurdly accurate marble island cities to overgrown painted palm trees, though his work also spans other media including painting, drawings, photography, video, and performance. Little Manhattan, currently at the High Line Park about a stone's throw from our office, is an almost nine-foot-long marble sculpture of the island of Manhattan. Featuring incredibly detailed and meticulous carving, the sculpture includes every bridge, pier, and building found in Manhattan at the time of the sculpture’s creation. While I wasn't able to get close enough to pick out our office building, the sculpture is fantastic and certainly worth checking out, which you should do by the end of this month before it's gone. 

New York Times: “10 Shots Across the Border”

The death of a Mexican teenager four years ago in Nogales, Mexico and its aftermath has again led to serious questions about the agency’s use of excessive force as well as corruption within Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Border Patrol. In 2012, when Nogales police and the Border Patrol were alerted to two drug smugglers at the border wall that splits Nogales, one Border Patrol officer, Lonnie Ray Swartz, who claimed that rocks were being thrown at the officers, opened fire. He shot sixteen-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodríguez on the Mexican side of the border. Rodriguez’s death was, in the words of James F. Tomsheck, who at the time led CBP’s Office of Internal Affairs, the “most egregious’’ of any excessive-force cases he’d seen at the agency, telling the New York Times that he felt ‘‘angry and sickened. Even if he had been throwing rocks previously—it’s conceivable, but there’s no evidence. But this was evidence of a Border Patrol agent shooting an unarmed boy.’’ By not charging the agent, Tomsheck said, the message would be that it’s “open season at the border.’’

Tomsheck, who has since left the agency, has been a severe critic of CBP’s handling of violence and abuse claims as well as CBP leadership, which he said had ‘‘a well-established history of intentional misinformation. Having sat through these meetings for years, after every one of these shootings, there’s an effort to spin and distort facts and obscure a clear understanding of what actually occurred.’’ In his position in Internal Affairs at the agency, he claimed that he held little actual power to investigate and remedy the misconduct claims. “We had a mandate to hold the Border Patrol accountable but were given very few to no authorities to do that job,’’ he told the New York Times.  ‘‘From Day 1, they aggressively resisted every effort.’’

In the past years, CPB has been accused of many instances of excessive force and abuse, including the shooting death of a Mexican man who was at a park with his family when a Border Patrol boat opened fire on a crowd of people, as well as other instances. A 2013 investigation by the Arizona Republic found that since 2005, CBP agents had killed forty-two people, and few had faced any repercussions even when the justification for the shooting was in doubt. While on average one CBP officer was arrested every day between 2005 and 2012—144 of them for corruption-level offenses—historically, Border Patrol agents have been rarely disciplined for misconduct allegations. In the case of Rodríguez, the officer who killed him was indicted three years after the teenager’s death, and only after the family’s civil lawsuit against the officer brought the case to public attention.  

One possible reason for the increase in misconduct cases over the years has been the dramatic surge in the number of border agents after September 11, along with the militarization of the agency. The number of Border Patrol agents doubled from 11,000 to 22,000, during President Bush’s second term, and the border patrol received such military hardware as drones, assault rifles, and Black Hawk helicopters. This arguably resulted in inexperienced agents with excessive firepower and a military-like mindset who often escalated tense situations.

In their defense, CBP agency leaders have said that critics don’t understand the threats Border Patrol agents face, and that it’s easy for those to judge who don’t “wear green,” a reference to the border patrol uniforms. With dangerous drug cartels operating on the border, agents must be vigilant in the threat of extreme violence. "Anything that is out there can be used against our agents," Hector Garza, spokesman for the Laredo local of the border agents union, told the Los Angeles Times. "Mesquite wood, firearms, rocks, you name it." The National Border Patrol Council, which exclusively represents approximately 18,000 Border Patrol Agents and support personnel, claims that despite being one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the US, Border Patrol agents “use lethal force seven times less than the average law enforcement officer nationwide. The facts don't lie, we stand by our agents and the truth.”

The Gherkin

30 St. Mary Axe in the City of London.

30 St. Mary Axe, widely known as the Gherkin and also the Swiss Re, is a neo-futuristic skyscraper in London's financial district. Opened in April 2004, the building stands at forty-one storeys and was designed by famed high-tech architect Norman Foster and the Arup Group. Although the building was criticized initially, it has become an iconic symbol of London. The glass dome at the very top of the building—which has a lovely little bar along with 360 degree views of London—can be hired out for business functions and weddings. Next office party?

New York Times: “U.S. to Further Scour Social Media Use of Visa and Asylum Seekers”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is building tools to examine social media accounts of visa applicants as well as those seeking asylum or refugee status in the US for possible terrorism ties. At a congressional hearing last month, Francis X. Taylor, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, the top counterterrorism official at DHS, said after the mass shooting in San Bernardino “we saw that our efforts are not as robust as they need to be,” and therefore would start to examine posts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites.

This DHS announcement comes after terrorist groups, most prominently the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, have been increasingly successful in using social media sites to spread propaganda, encourage independent terrorist attacks, and as a recruitment tool. Previous to DHS’s announcement, Senator John McCain introduced a bill that would require the DHS to screen social media sites for refugees and those visiting or immigrating to the US, and Representative Vern Buchanan has additionally introduced a bill mirroring McCain's that requires the DHS to examine all public records, including “Facebook and other forms of social media,” as part of the routine security background check.

“This legislation adds an important and necessary layer of screening that will go a long way in properly vetting the online activities of those wishing to enter the United States,” Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told the New York Times. “A simple check of social media accounts of foreign travelers and visa applicants will help ensure that those who have participated in, pledged allegiance to or communicated with terrorist organizations cannot enter the United States.” While Congress has yet to act on the proposed legislation, in December, twenty-two Democratic lawmakers urged DHS to examine social media accounts for those seeking US visas.

Melanie Nezer, Vice President for Policy & Advocacy at HIAS, an agency that assists in refugee resettlement, commented to the New York Times about DHS’s social media plans: “We haven’t seen the policy, but it is a concern considering the already lengthy and opaque process that refugees have to go through. It could keep out people who are not a threat.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine agreed, telling WMTW News, an ABC affiliate: “We already have a rigorous and multi-layered security screening program in place for refugee resettlement that works. This proposal will only serve to further stigmatize immigrants and divide our country."

DHS’s new plan to review social media accounts comes after they abandoned a similar proposal in 2011. Currently, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), an agency of DHS, examines social media accounts as part of the screening process for certain Syrian refugees, but only when there is a "hit" in an intelligence database for the applicant or if there is a security concern stemming from the interview with immigration officials. DHS says they are now hoping to automate the social media review, as a huge amount of messages and other data will need to be processed, as well as make additional hires to conduct the necessary social media security checks.

While data mining experts such as John Elder, who has worked with the Internal Revenue Service and the Postal Service on fraud detection, believe that analyzing social media accounts of millions of people who enter the US each year is feasible, other stress that conducting a thorough and accurate review would be very difficult. David Heyman, a former Assistant Secretary of Policy for DHS, told the New York Times: “You have to be careful how you design the proposal to screen people,” he said. “Artificial intelligence and algorithms have a poor ability to discern sarcasm or parody.”