Exchange Rate: Foreign Student Program Costs Billions

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Optional Practical Training program started as a way of
allowing foreign students to gain training and work experience in
the US, but John Fiery with the Center for Immigration
Studies says the program has grown out of control.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
DHS has decided to allow foreign students to obtain work
authorization after they graduate. They originally said, wow, we think
there's only going to be about twelve thousand foreign students
who've partake in this. There is now over five hundred
and thirty nine thousand.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
The program exempts foreign students from Social Security taxes, costing
four billion dollars last year, and it exempts their employers
from certain taxes, making it more expensive to hire American workers.
Corey Jolson, who's Radio seven forty KTRH