1/9/2008

As reported before, 19 U.S. Senators asked the Secretary of DHS to relieve the OPT foreign students from their predicament involving gap between the expiration of OPT and grace period before October 1 and current USCIS policy requiring maintaining status through October 1 to file the H-1B petition on April 1 each year. 

This is a common problem for the graduating foreign students since the schools schedule graduation in May or June each year. Accordingly, under the given circumstances, the gap between expiration of OPT and the required nonimmigrant status as of October 1 is inevitable for these foreign brains who are educated in this country and whose loss will result in loss of social cost to the nation relating to the nation's training of these foreign brains.

Considering the predicament, the legacy INS annually exercised its discretion and allowed such OPT students with such gap to file a H-1B petition inasmuch as the petition was timely filed while the students were in a valid OPT or grace period status. This practice has however been tangled with the issue of jurisdictions within the DHS after the legacy INS was dismantled and absolved into the mammoth government agency named DHS. In this reorganization process, the legacy INS functions have been fragmented into three different divisions within the DHS.

The Senators' letter indicates that the DHS has been considering some options to relieve these students at the administrative level and without a legislative action by the Congress. In view of the anticipated continuing failure of Congress to pass any legislation to increase the H-1B cap in the very near future, we welcome the initiatives by the Senators and the DHS Secretary to untangle the current mess and predicament for these talented foreign brains.