Trump is putting international students at risk, and a forthcoming bill might assist in preventing this.

A bipartisan pair is combating President Donald Trump’s efforts to terminate a program enabling many foreign students to gain employment in the US for a year post-graduation. Representatives Sam Liccardo (D-CA) and Jay Obernolte (R-CA) have brought forth a bill that would formalize Optional Practical Training (OPT), permitting international students to work in their academic disciplines for 12 months, with possible extensions of up to 24 months for those in STEM fields.

Launched in 1992, OPT acts as a transitional period for student visas, or F-1s, and H-1Bs, the visa type allocated to foreign nationals employed by US firms. However, the Trump administration currently endangers OPT, contemplating its complete dismantling as part of a more extensive clampdown on legal immigration. Liccardo and Obernolte aim to bolster bipartisan backing for the initiative, which, until recently, had largely gone unnoticed and met minimal resistance from either political side.

From 2006 to 2022, 56 percent of international students entering the country on F-1 visas participated in OPT, according to statistics from the Institute for Progress. Those with advanced degrees are more inclined to engage in OPT than undergraduates, and STEM students are more likely to utilize the program to secure employment in the US than peers in different disciplines. The Department of Homeland Security’s data reveals that 165,524 foreign students took part in STEM OPT in 2024 alone. STEM doctoral graduates exhibit the highest participation rate in OPT, with 76 percent of them entering the program.

“The OPT initiative allows hundreds of thousands of the most talented individuals globally to receive their education in the US, while providing a pathway to contribute to our economy,” Liccardo, a supporter of the bill, shared with The Verge. “The alternative to OPT is educating these exceptional individuals only to return them to their home countries, where they will establish companies that compete against us.”

Congress has not enacted any significant immigration reforms in decades, and OPT was not established through legislation. The program was initiated by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 under the auspices of the Department of Justice, which supervised the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), now succeeded by ICE, until the inception of DHS in 2003. Currently, the OPT program is managed by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the entity within DHS overseeing legal immigration.

Whenever new regulations have been implemented regarding OPT, they have consistently expanded the initiative rather than contract its reach: both George W. Bush and Barack Obama prolonged the OPT duration for students with degrees in STEM, allowing them to work in the US for as long as 36 months.

“It has never been codified into law,” Liccardo stated, “and that is exactly why, in an atmosphere where new ideas emerge every two hours regarding how this administration can sever the United States from the global community — be it stifling talent, exports, or alliances with our partners — we aim to formalize it to ensure this essential program persists in bolstering the American economy.”

Despite broad bipartisan endorsement, the OPT program has encountered legal obstacles for over a decade. In 2014, the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers filed a lawsuit against DHS following the Obama administration’s extension of STEM OPT to 17 months, claiming such changes disadvantaged American workers. The lawsuit also asserted that DHS overstepped its regulatory authority in establishing OPT. An amicus brief submitted in 2019 by over 100 educational institutions argued that abolishing OPT would complicate their ability to “compete for international students, especially now when global competition is intense and international students are already questioning their welcome in the United States due to recent shifts in immigration policies and enforcement.”

During his nomination hearing in May 2025, Joseph B. Edlow, Trump’s nominee to lead USCIS, pledged to abolish OPT. Edlow, who has since been confirmed by the Senate, remarked that OPT has been “mismanaged,” suggesting he preferred a “regulatory and sub-regulatory framework that would allow us to rescind” work authorizations for international students upon their graduation. Various groups advocating for immigration restrictions, including the right-leaning Center for Immigration Studies, have long campaigned for the termination of OPT, citing that it lowers wages for American workers.

There were rumors last autumn suggesting that the Trump administration might introduce a rule to that effect early in 2026, but no amendments have yet been made to OPT. In addition to executing massive ICE raids nationwide, the Trump administration is advocating to tighten numerous avenues of legal migration. It increased fees for H-1B visas to $100,000 and enforced full or partial travel prohibitions against nationals from 20 countries. Although Trump had previously suggested his interest in granting green cards to every international student who graduates from a US institution, it is considerably more probable that his administration will seek to restrict or eliminate OPT altogether.

Liccardo, who is a cosponsor of the bill aimed at formalizing OPT, asserted that discontinuing the program will have negative repercussions that affect all Americans. “At a time when China, in particular, is outpacing the United States across a variety of technologies and sectors such as solar energy, energy storage, and increasingly, biotech,” he stated, “we cannot risk losing American-trained, American-educated engineers, scientists, and innovators to fuel our competitors’ growth.”