USCIS defines new rules to toughen the immigrant student’s visa

If your dream is to study in the United States and furthermore thereby looking for employment opportunities, here’s is a new hurdle posed at you. For immigrant students enrolling for an educational visa in 2016, the Immigration department of the United States, USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) have declared a new set of rules that makes the visa process tougher than before. Here are the important modification imposed by the USCIS,

Extended paperwork

The international students were previously permitted to enjoy 17 months of work extension after consuming their OPT work authorization associated to STEM degree. All they had to do is a letter from the employer who offers the job certifying him/her to work for their organization. But now, the employer must undergo certain paperwork to justify the opportunity offered to the applicant. After accomplishing this paperwork, the applicant can extend their OPT work authorization (to STEM students) for up to 24 months. The paperwork include the following areas,

Adequate Resources – The aim of this opportunity to students is that a participation in a formal training program will augment the student's overall academic knowledge and learning in terms of the practical experience. Thus the employer must make sure of enough resources (i.e. sufficiently trained personnel) to teach the students and knowledge them.

Equal Responsibilities and Benefits – The employer must make sure that the job offer involves the same duties, working hours, and salaries compared to that of positions held by other employees (Non-Immigrant).

Cannot grab the role of U.S Worker – The international student on this work permit can never replace a full-time/part-time/temporary/permanent U.S. worker who already employed in that organization. These attestations are included to the attestations already existing under the previous rule. These new rules were implemented in response to a lawsuit filed to enjoin the OPT program on the grounds that it deprives U.S. workers of employment opportunities. While the court agreed with the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit, the court's decision to enjoin the OPT program was stayed to allow the relevant government agencies to develop new rules showing that OPT is meant to provide legitimate practical experience to students rather than giving employers a "cheap" labor source.

Detailed Explanation of the Program – The toughest and time-consuming paperwork of this obligation for employers is documenting detailed and succinct explanation about the training program offered to the applicant.

In spite of the fact that it already exists or has been developed specifically for the student, they need to document the clear information and submit to the immigration authority. Some of the crucial elements that this document include are,

• Detailed description of the student's role within the employer's organization
• Goals and primary intent of the training
• Competencies and benchmarks aimed to be achieved by the student
• Information on the day-to-day activities the student
• Activities that highlights the enhancement of his/her studies
• Explanation of how those day-to-day duties are associated with his/her studies
• Additional mentoring and training supplemented by the program
• Explaining how the student is supervised
• Facilities and systems to monitor the student's work and provide mentoring
• Employer's existing organizational reporting structure
• How is the student assigned assignments and how they are supervised?
• The description on the approaches followed by the employer to evaluate student’s progress. (must justify why that particular process is chosen and does that evaluates the student’s progress accurately.

Form I-983

All the above-mentioned elements are covered in a form called I-983 which the employer who offers OPT extension to the immigrant student.