STUDENT AND 

EXCHANGE VISITOR 

PROGRAM

DHS Needs to Assess 

Risks and Strengthen 

Oversight of Foreign 

Students with 

Employment 

Authorization

Report to the Ranking Member, 

Committee on the Judiciary, 

U.S. Senate

February 2014

GAO-14-356

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-14-356, a report to the 

Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary, 

U.S. Senate

February 2014

STUDENT AND EXCHANGE VISITOR 

PROGRAM

DHS Needs to Assess Risks and Strengthen 

Oversight of Foreign Students with Employment 

Authorization

Why GAO Did This Study

As of November 2013, about 100,000 

of the approximately 1 million foreign 

students in the United States were

approved to participate in OPT—an 

employment benefit that allows foreign 

students to obtain temporary work in 

their areas of study during and after 

completing an academic program. ICE

is responsible for certifying schools;

monitoring foreign students and 

schools, including their compliance 

with OPT requirements; and enforcing 

immigration laws for those that fail to 

comply.

GAO was asked to review the 

management of OPT. This report 

examines the extent to which DHS has 

(1) identified and assessed risks 

associated with OPT, and (2) collected 

information and developed monitoring 

mechanisms to help ensure students 

comply with OPT requirements and 

maintain their legal status. GAO 

analyzed ICE regulations and policies 

and data on schools that recommend 

and foreign students approved for

OPT, as of August 2013. GAO 

interviewed ICE and USCIS officials, 

including those from 7 of 26 ICE field 

offices selected based on factors such 

as OPT-related fraud investigations.

Interview results cannot be 

generalized, but they provided insights 

about OPT risks.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that ICE, among 

other things, identify and assess OPTrelated risks and require additional 

employment information from students 

and schools. DHS concurred with the 

recommendations.

What GAO Found

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a component of the

Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has not identified or assessed fraud or 

noncompliance risks posed by schools that recommend and foreign students 

approved for optional practical training (OPT), in accordance with DHS risk 

management guidance. ICE’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) 

officials consider OPT to be a low-risk employment benefit for foreign students 

because, in part, they believe foreign students approved for OPT do not have an 

incentive to jeopardize their legal status in the United States. However, SEVP 

has not determined potential risks in OPT. Further, officials from the 

Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU), ICE’s investigative 

unit, and ICE field agents GAO interviewed have identified potential risks 

involving OPT based on prior and ongoing investigations. For example, ICE field 

agents identified cases where school officials recommended OPT for foreign 

students to work outside of their major areas of study, which is not allowed under 

ICE regulations. In response to a June 2012 GAO recommendation, ICE has 

taken initial actions to identify risks across SEVP-certified schools but has not 

identified and assessed OPT risks or determined the extent to which potential 

OPT risks will be part of its efforts to assess risks SEVP-wide. Further, SEVP has 

not coordinated with CTCEU, including obtaining and assessing information from

CTCEU and ICE field offices regarding OPT risks, as part of its efforts. Identifying 

and assessing OPT risks, in coordination with CTCEU, could better position 

SEVP to manage risks in OPT.

ICE has not consistently collected the information and developed the monitoring 

mechanisms needed to help ensure foreign students comply with OPT 

requirements, thereby maintaining their legal status in the United States. Foreign 

students can participate in OPT while attending classes and after graduation for 

up to 12 months; students studying in science, technology, engineering, or 

mathematics fields may be eligible for an additional 17 months (29 months total).

However, ICE does not have complete information on which foreign students 

approved for OPT are actively working and whether employment is related to 

their studies, per ICE regulations. For example, GAO’s analysis of ICE data on 

students engaged in all types of OPT indicates that 38 percent (48,642 of 

126,796) of student records do not contain an employer’s name. Furthermore, 

the data do not include the date on which students granted authorization began

working. ICE does not require that students and school officials report this 

information. Without these data, ICE cannot determine whether students with 

employment authorization are working in jobs related to their studies and not 

exceeding regulatory limits on unemployment. Collecting and monitoring 

complete information on foreign students approved for OPT would better position 

ICE to determine whether these students are maintaining legal status in the 

United States.

This is a public version of a For Official Use Only/Law Enforcement Sensitive 

report that GAO issued in January 2014. Information DHS deemed sensitive has 

been redacted.

View GAO-14-356. For more information, 

contact Rebecca Gambler at (202) 512-8777 

or gamblerr@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Letter 1

Background 7

ICE Has Not Identified or Assessed Risks in OPT 15

ICE Cannot Fully Ensure Foreign Students Working under 

Optional Practical Training Are Maintaining Their Legal Status 

in the United States 18

Conclusions 30

Recommendations for Executive Action 31

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 32

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 33

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 38

Appendix III GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 41

Tables

Table 1: Key Requirements for the Three Types of Optional 

Practical Training (OPT) 10

Table 2: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) 

Receipts of Employment Authorization Applications for 

Optional Practical Training and Adjudication Results, 

Fiscal Years 2008 through 2013 14

Table 3: Employer Name in Student Records by Type of Optional 

Practical Training (OPT), as of August 2013 19

Table 4: Student Records for Optional Practical Training (OPT) 

Students Containing Information in Employment Comment 

and Remark Fields, as of August 2013 21

Table 5: Student Records for Optional Practical Training (OPT) 

Students’ Dates of Educational Program and 

Employment, as of August 2013 28

Figure

Figure 1: Approval Process for a Foreign Student Seeking to 

Participate in Optional Practical Training (OPT) 13

Contents
Page ii GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Abbreviations

CBP U.S. Customs and Border Protection

CLAIMS Computer-Linked Application Information Management 

System 3

CTCEU Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit

DHS Department of Homeland Security

DSO designated school official

HSI Homeland Security Investigations

ICE U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

OPT optional practical training

SEVIS Student and Exchange Visitor Information System

SEVP Student and Exchange Visitor Program

STEM science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

USCIS U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. The published product may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety 

without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain 

copyrighted images or other material, permission from the copyright holder may be 

necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately.
Page 1 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

February 27, 2014

The Honorable Charles E. Grassley

Ranking Member

Committee on the Judiciary

United States Senate

Dear Senator Grassley:

As of November 2013, about 100,000 of the approximately 1 million 

foreign students in the United States (or about 10 percent) were approved 

to participate in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) optional 

practical training (OPT). OPT is an employment benefit that allows foreign 

students to seek temporary work during and after completing an 

academic program to gain practical experience in their major areas of 

study. The February 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, 

which involved foreign students, drew attention to the need to improve the 

monitoring of foreign students by, among other things, moving from a 

manual paper-based foreign student tracking and monitoring system to a 

computer-based system. Subsequently, the September 2001 terrorist 

attacks, as well as the April 2013 terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon, 

drew renewed attention to the need to further enhance the monitoring of 

foreign students. According to DHS officials, those foreign students who 

remain in the United States after completing their program of study by 

working under OPT can pose risks. Thus, proper monitoring is important 

to ensure that, for example, foreign students who complete an academic 

program and any authorized OPT leave the United States as required or 

take steps to legally extend their stay in the country to avoid becoming 

overstays.1

 1

Overstays are individuals who were admitted into the country legally on a temporary 

basis but then overstayed their authorized periods of admission. In this report, we include 

out-of-status students—student visa holders who fail to meet certain requirements, such 

as enrolling in a qualified education program or engaging in authorized practical training 

following completion of studies—in our definition of overstays. Foreign students are 

allowed 60 days after the completion of their academic program or OPT to prepare for 

departure from the United States. For more information, see GAO, Overstays 

Enforcement: Additional Actions Needed to Assess DHS’s Data and Improve Planning for 

a Biometric Air Exit Program, GAO-13-683 (Washington, D.C.: July 30, 2013).
Page 2 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Within DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), through 

its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), is responsible for 

certifying schools to enroll foreign students and managing the 

participation of certified schools in the program and nonimmigrant foreign 

students in the F and M visa classifications.2 SEVP oversees F and M 

student policy, including OPT requirements, and monitors F and M 

student status.3 According to SEVP’s strategic plan framework, SEVP’s 

two primary objectives are to (1) prevent terrorist exploitation of legitimate 

student entry paths into the United States, and (2) facilitate legitimate 

flows of people and commerce.4

Working with SEVP, designated school officials (DSO) are responsible for 

entering and maintaining foreign students’ information in SEVIS, such as 

information on students’ courses of study.

Specifically, according to the plan, SEVP 

is to deny terrorists acceptance into the U.S. academic system, monitor 

accepted students and certified schools to identify those that fall out of 

compliance with immigration laws, and enforce immigration laws for those 

that fail to comply. Also, SEVP manages the Student and Exchange 

Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which assists in tracking and 

monitoring certified schools and foreign students.

5

 2

SEVP was created in conjunction with DHS’s formation on March 1, 2003. SEVP’s 

funding comes from fees paid by schools and foreign students approved for the program. 

F visas are for foreign students pursuing academic studies at a college, university, or 

other academic institution, or in an accredited language training program; M visas are for 

foreign students pursuing studies at an established vocational or other recognized 

nonacademic institution. The Department of State manages nonimmigrant exchange 

visitors in the 

DSOs are also responsible for 

J visa classification. J visas enable foreign nationals to come to the United 

States to teach, study, conduct research, demonstrate special skills, or receive on-the-job 

training for periods ranging from a few weeks to several years.

3

In May 2007, ICE and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agreed that 

authority for F and M student policy and regulations resides with ICE, and that USCIS 

retains authority for interpreting statutes and regulations with regard to applications by F 

and M foreign students for employment authorization. In addition, USCIS agreed to 

coordinate with ICE to ensure that F and M foreign student policies are carried out 

consistently within DHS, and ICE agreed to consult with USCIS before finalizing policies 

and regulations governing F and M foreign students. 

4

SEVP strategic plan framework (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 20, 2011).

5

DSOs are school employees who must be citizens of the United States or lawful 

permanent residents and whose offices must be located on the campus of their schools. In 

addition, ICE requires DSOs to be familiar with the regulations governing foreign students, 

including those approved for OPT. To that end, DSOs must attest that they intend to 

comply with ICE’s rules and regulations specifying their responsibilities, with these 

attestations providing that willful misstatements constitute perjury.
Page 3 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

recommending eligible foreign students for OPT to DHS’s U.S. 

Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which adjudicates foreign 

students’ applications for employment authorization. Once a foreign 

student receives approval from USCIS for temporary employment under 

OPT, the student can start working on the approved starting date. ICE’s 

Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU), as the 

investigative component of ICE, is responsible for, among other things, 

combating the criminal exploitation of the foreign student visa system, 

including conducting criminal investigations of school and foreign student 

fraud, such as OPT fraud. Further, CTCEU is responsible for locating and 

apprehending F and M students who have violated their immigration 

status, including those who have done so by failing to comply with OPT 

requirements. CTCEU gathers and analyzes leads on nonimmigrants in 

the United States to identify potential national security or criminal threats 

and ensure compliance with immigration laws.

In April 2011, we reported that some schools had attempted to exploit the 

immigration system by knowingly reporting that foreign students were 

fulfilling their visa requirements, such as attending school full-time, when 

they were not attending school or attending intermittently.6 In June 2012, 

we reported on ICE’s efforts to assess risks of fraud and noncompliance 

in SEVP and oversee schools that are certified to accept foreign 

students.7

 6

GAO, Overstay Enforcement: Additional Mechanisms for Collecting, Assessing, and 

Sharing Data Could Strengthen DHS’s Efforts but Would Have Costs, 

Specifically, we reported that ICE had not developed a process 

to identify and analyze risks across SEVP-certified schools, in 

accordance with internal control standards and risk management 

guidance. We reported that officials from SEVP and CTCEU had 

expressed concerns about the fraud risks posed by schools that do not 

comply with requirements. However, we found that SEVP did not have 

processes to identify and analyze program risks, including (1) evaluating 

prior and suspected cases of school noncompliance and fraud, and (2) 

obtaining and assessing information from CTCEU and ICE field offices on 

school investigations and outreach. In addition, we found that ICE had not 

consistently implemented existing controls, in accordance with federal 

internal control standards and fraud prevention practices, to verify 

GAO-11-411

(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 15, 2011).

7

GAO, Student and Exchange Visitor Program: DHS Needs to Assess Risks and 

Strengthen Oversight Functions, GAO-12-572 (Washington, D.C.: June 18, 2012). 
Page 4 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

schools’ legitimacy and eligibility during initial SEVP certification and once 

schools began accepting foreign students. Further, we found that ICE did 

not maintain records to document SEVP-certified schools’ ongoing 

compliance with regulatory requirements and that school case files were 

incomplete or missing. On the basis of these findings, we recommended 

that ICE develop and implement a process to identify and assess risks in 

SEVP, consistently implement procedures for ensuring schools’ eligibility, 

and establish a process to identify and address all missing school case 

files, among other things. DHS concurred with these recommendations 

and, as of December 2013, has taken steps to address them. For 

example, SEVP has taken initial steps to develop preliminary risk 

indicators for certified schools and recover documentation that had been 

missing from school case files.

You asked us to review DHS’s management of OPT, including whether 

DHS considers risk information in monitoring those schools that 

recommend foreign students, and foreign students approved, for this 

employment benefit. This report examines the extent to which DHS has 

(1) identified and assessed risks associated with OPT, and (2) collected 

information and developed monitoring mechanisms to help ensure 

students comply with OPT requirements and maintain their legal status in 

the United States.

This report is a public version of the prior sensitive report that we 

provided to you. DHS deemed some of the information in the prior report 

as For Official Use Only/Law Enforcement Sensitive, which must be 

protected from public disclosure. Therefore, this report omits sensitive 

information on risk indicators related to OPT, specific details on types of 

foreign student information maintained and shared in DHS databases, 

and specific information on actions DHS could take related to foreign 

students’ school transfers. Although the information provided in this report 

is more limited in scope, it addresses the same questions as the sensitive 

report. Also, the overall methodology used for both reports is the same.

To evaluate the extent to which DHS has identified and assessed risks 

associated with OPT, we analyzed documentation such as ICE’s 

compliance and watch lists that contain schools that SEVP has identified 

as potentially noncompliant or fraudulent. Also, we analyzed ICE news 

bulletins from January 2008 to November 2013 to help determine the 

magnitude of previous cases of fraud and evaluated information provided 

by CTCEU on criminal investigations related to school or student 

noncompliance or fraud involving OPT. In addition, we analyzed 

documentation CTCEU officials provided regarding risks and 
Page 5 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

vulnerabilities they have identified in OPT-related policies, procedures, 

and regulations during the course of their work. Moreover, we analyzed 

SEVIS data on schools that had at least one foreign student approved for 

OPT, as of August 2013, to identify examples of schools that pose a 

potential risk for fraud or noncompliance involving OPT using a risk 

indicator identified by CTCEU. Further, we compared DHS’s risk 

management practices related to OPT against DHS’s Policy for Integrated 

Risk Management and Risk Management Fundamentals.

8

To determine the extent to which DHS has collected information and 

developed monitoring mechanisms to help ensure students comply with 

OPT requirements and maintain their legal status in the United States, we 

analyzed the processes ICE uses to collect information on where and 

when students are working and to monitor schools’ and students’ 

compliance with specific requirements for maintenance of their student 

visa status. We also assessed the implementation of SEVP’s 

management and oversight controls against criteria in Standards for 

Internal Control in the Federal Government as they relate to, among other 

things, compliance with applicable laws and regulations.9

To assess the reliability of the SEVIS data on foreign students approved 

for OPT that we analyzed for both objectives, we (1) reviewed existing 

documentation on the controls in the system and the policies for ensuring 

data reliability, and (2) interviewed agency officials responsible for 

managing the data about the data’s sources, the system’s controls, and 

any quality assurance steps performed after data are entered into the 

system. We identified several limitations to the data, which we discuss 

later in the report. While we identified such limitations, we found the data 

to be sufficiently reliable for providing descriptive information on the 

population of SEVP-certified schools that have recommended OPT and of 

Using the 

SEVIS data on foreign students approved for OPT as of August 2013, we 

analyzed the extent to which foreign student records contained employer 

information, included information on whether employment was related to 

the major area of study, and indicated the amount of OPT authorized.

 8

Department of Homeland Security, DHS Policy for Integrated Risk Management

(Washington, D.C.: May 27, 2010), and DHS Risk Management Fundamentals: Homeland 

Security Risk Management Doctrine (Washington, D.C.: April 2011).

9

GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1

(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 1, 1999).
Page 6 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

foreign students engaged in OPT. We also found the data sufficiently 

reliable for analyzing student records for compliance with certain 

regulatory and policy requirements. In addition, we analyzed USCIS’s 

Computer-Linked Application Information Management System 3 

(CLAIMS) data on the results of USCIS’s adjudications of requests for 

OPT employment authorization from fiscal years 2008 through 2013.10

In addition, to address both objectives, we interviewed officials from 

SEVP’s School Certification, Policy, Analysis and Operations Center, 

Field Representative, and Systems Management branches and units to 

discuss their involvement in OPT. We also interviewed officials from 

CTCEU, as well as investigators from 7 of ICE’s 26 Homeland Security 

Investigations (HSI) field offices, which allowed us to obtain their 

perspectives on any risks associated with OPT.

To 

assess the reliability of these CLAIMS data, we interviewed agency 

officials responsible for managing the data about the data’s sources and 

the system’s controls. We found the data to be sufficiently reliable to 

report information on the number of, among other things, employment 

authorization applications and approvals for foreign students engaged in 

OPT.

11

 10CLAIMS 3 is a legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service case management system 

utilized by USCIS. CLAIMS 3 includes data and information on the status of foreign 

nationals’ applications for extensions of stay and a variety of immigration applications and 

petitions (e.g., to convert from a tourist to a student). CLAIMS 3 also maintains data on 

applications for work authorization.

We selected these 

offices based on their experience in investigating previous and ongoing 

cases of school or student fraud or noncompliance related to OPT. 

Although the results from these interviews cannot be generalized to 

officials at all 26 ICE field offices, they provided us with useful insights 

into lessons learned from cases related to OPT. We also interviewed 

USCIS officials to determine the extent to which USCIS has implemented 

processes for ensuring the eligibility of students applying for employment 

authorization under OPT. In addition, we interviewed 11 DSOs, and 

received a written response from 1 DSO, from schools in and around the 

Washington, D.C., area. We selected these officials because, as of July 

2013, they composed a group of representatives from SEVP-certified 

11We interviewed officials from ICE’s HSI field offices in Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, 

Massachusetts; Newark, New Jersey; New York, New York; and Los Angeles and San 

Francisco, California. We also interviewed officials from ICE’s HSI field office in 

Charleston, West Virginia, which is under the supervision of the field office in Philadelphia, 

Pennsylvania. 
Page 7 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

schools of various types and sizes in the Washington, D.C., region that 

meets regularly with SEVP to discuss matters such as SEVIS and SEVP 

policy and requirements. The results from these interviews cannot be 

generalized to all DSOs, but provided us with useful insights into the role 

of the DSOs in OPT. Further, we interviewed officials from NAFSA: 

Association of International Educators to discuss the organization’s views 

on OPT, including the involvement of DSOs in OPT.12

We conducted this performance audit from February 2013 to February

2014, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix I 

presents more details about our scope and methodology.

Foreign students interested in studying in the United States must first be 

admitted to a school or university before applying for a visa at a U.S. 

embassy or consulate overseas. DSOs use SEVIS to issue Form I-20s to 

students, which enable them to apply for nonimmigrant student visas.13

 12NAFSA was founded in 1948 as the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers to 

promote the professional development of U.S. college and university officials responsible 

for assisting and advising foreign students. In 1990, NAFSA changed its name to NAFSA: 

Association of International Educators to reflect its expanded mission. NAFSA’s mission is 

to serve international educators, including international student advisers and DSOs, and 

their institutions and organizations, by establishing principles of good practice, providing 

professional learning and development opportunities, providing networking opportunities, 

and advocating for international education. 

The Department of State (State) issues nonimmigrant visas to eligible 

foreign students. The process for determining who will be issued or 

refused a visa, including F and M visas, contains various steps, including 

documentation reviews, in-person interviews, collection of applicants’ 

fingerprints, and cross-references against State’s name check database. 

13The Form I-20 is a Certificate of Eligibility for Nonimmigrant Student Status for Academic 

and Language Students or Vocational Students.

Background

Federal Agencies’ and 

School Officials’ Roles and 

Responsibilities Regarding 

Foreign Students 

Approved for OPT
Page 8 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

F visas are for academic study at 2- and 4-year colleges and universities 

and other academic institutions.14 M visas are for nonacademic study at 

institutions such as vocational and technical schools.15 Nonimmigrants 

who wish to work temporarily in the United States typically need to obtain 

a visa that allows them to work in the United States; F and M visas allow 

for limited employment authorization and may not be used in place of visa 

classifications designated for temporary employees.16

A visa allows a foreign citizen to travel to a U.S. port of entry and request 

permission from an officer with DHS’s U.S. Customs and Border 

Protection (CBP) to enter the United States.

F and M visa 

holders are not allowed to work in the United States after completing their 

program of study unless they receive employment authorization through 

OPT.

17

 148 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(F); 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f).

However, a visa does not 

guarantee entry into the country. By interviewing individuals and 

examining the validity of their required documentation, CBP officers 

determine whether to admit individuals into the United States. Foreign 

nationals traveling on student visas are not generally issued specific 

dates until which they are authorized to remain in the United States, but 

instead are admitted for what is referred to as duration of status. This 

means that they may remain in the country so long as they maintain their 

student status (such as by enrolling full-time in an academic program or 

being approved for OPT after completing their program of study). USCIS 

adjudicates, among other things, change-of-status requests from other 

classes of nonimmigrants in the United States who wish to become F or 

M students. With regard to OPT, in particular, USCIS is responsible for 

adjudicating employment authorization requests from the foreign students 

who have obtained DSOs’ recommendations to participate in OPT.

158 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(M); 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(m).

16For example, H-1B visas allow foreign citizens to come to the United States to perform 

temporary work in specialty occupations. A specialty occupation is defined as one 

requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge 

and the attainment of a bachelor’s degree or higher (or its equivalent) in the field of 

specialty. H-2A and H-2B visas respectively allow foreign citizens to come to the United 

States to perform temporary or seasonal agricultural and nonagricultural work.

17A port of entry is any officially designated location (seaport, airport, or land border 

location) where DHS officers or employees are assigned to clear passengers and 

merchandise, collect duties, and enforce customs laws. 
Page 9 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Within ICE, SEVP, in conjunction with DSOs, is responsible for 

overseeing foreign students approved for OPT and maintaining 

information on these students in SEVIS. Also within ICE, CTCEU is 

responsible for (1) investigating foreign students who fail to enroll in or

maintain status at their schools, including those foreign students 

approved for OPT, and (2) conducting criminal investigations of certified 

schools that do not remain in compliance with regulatory requirements. 

For example, CTCEU pursues criminal investigations against school 

officials who have exploited the system by operating sham institutions, 

which are operated solely to admit foreign nationals into the country 

without participation in educational programs. CTCEU assigns school and 

foreign student fraud-related investigations to ICE field offices; the offices 

can also open their own fraud investigations.

According to ICE regulations and policies, OPT is available to eligible 

foreign students (F and M visa holders) who are enrolled in a college, 

university, conservatory, seminary, or established vocational or other 

recognized nonacademic institution, in a program other than English 

language training.18 Employment under OPT must be in a job directly 

related to the foreign student’s major area of study, and foreign students 

who apply to participate in OPT must have completed at least 1 academic 

school year or, in the case of M visa holders, their entire course of study. 

Foreign students on an F visa can temporarily work in the country under 

one of three types of OPT.19 First, foreign students may work part-time 

while they are in school or full-time on school breaks (pre-completion 

OPT).20

 188 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(10), (m)(14); SEVP Policy Guidance 1004-03.

Second, foreign students may work full-time for up to 12 months 

after completing a program of study (12-month post-completion OPT). 

19Foreign students on an M visa may engage in OPT only after completion of their course 

of study and for a total of no more than 6 months. 

20Foreign students on an F visa who are not enrolled in English language training 

programs also may engage in curricular practical training. Curricular practical training 

must be an integral part of an established curriculum and is defined as alternative 

work/study, internship, cooperative education, or any other type of required internship or 

practicum that is offered by sponsoring employers through cooperative agreements with 

the school. Unlike OPT, curricular practical training does not require employment 

authorization from USCIS, and exceptions to the 1 academic year requirement can be 

made for students enrolled in graduate studies that require immediate participation in 

curricular practical training. See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2 (f)(10)(i).

Requirements for Initial 

Approval and Ongoing 

Eligibility for OPT
Page 10 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Third, foreign students studying in areas of study related to science, 

technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are eligible to work 

full-time for an additional 17 months (17-month STEM extension postcompletion OPT).21

Table 1: Key Requirements for the Three Types of Optional Practical Training (OPT)

Table 1 shows the three types of OPT and their 

requirements.

Requirements Pre-completion OPT 12-month post-completion OPT a

17-month science, technology, 

engineering, and mathematics 

(STEM) extension postcompletion OPT

Eligibility F visa students who have been 

enrolled in a program of study at a 

college, university, conservatory, 

or seminary for at least 1 academic 

year.

F and M visa students who have 

completed their program of study 

at a college, university, 

conservatory, seminary, or 

recognized nonacademic institution 

such as a vocational school.

F visa students who have 

completed their program of study 

at a college, university, 

conservatory, or seminary and who 

have completed the 12-month 

post-completion OPT.

Students must have a bachelor’s, 

master’s, or doctoral degree in a 

Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS)-designated STEM 

program.b

Employers must be participants in 

E-Verify.c

Only one 17-month extension is 

permitted per student.

 21Students approved for either 12-month post-completion OPT or 17-month STEM 

extension post-completion OPT can have their student status and employment 

authorization automatically extended if they are the beneficiaries of an H-1B petition for 

temporary employment in a specialty occupation. The employment authorization extension 

generally lasts until October 1 of the fiscal year for which the H-1B visa is being requested 

or until the petition is rejected, denied, or revoked, whichever comes first. This extension 

is referred to as the cap-gap extension. See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(5)(vi). 
Page 11 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Requirements Pre-completion OPT 12-month post-completion OPT a

17-month science, technology, 

engineering, and mathematics 

(STEM) extension postcompletion OPT

Employment duration 

and accrual limits

Employment may occur only 

during the student’s program of 

study.

Any part-time pre-completion 

employment counts as half of the 

amount of time worked in 

calculating the total allowed OPT 

for each foreign student (for 

example, 6 months of part-time 

pre-completion OPT counts as 3 

months toward the 12-month 

total allowed OPT).

F visa students cannot exceed 12 

months of post-completion OPT, 

including any time spent in precompletion OPT.

F visa students’ employment end 

dates must be within 14 months of 

the program of study end date (for 

example, by July 2014 if the 

student graduated in May 2013).

M visa students can work for a 

maximum of only 6 months 

following the completion of their 

program of study (for example, 

by November 2013 if the student 

graduated and started to work in 

May 2013).

F visa students cannot exceed 17 

months of STEM extension OPT.

F visa students’ employment start 

and end dates must be within 17 

months of the 12-month postcompletion OPT end date and 31 

months of the program of study 

end date (for example, by 

December 2015 if the student 

finished the 12-month postcompletion OPT in July 2014 and 

graduated in May 2013).

Employment hours Students are allowed to work no 

more than 20 hours per week 

while school is in session.

During scheduled school breaks 

(such as summer and winter 

break), students may work more 

than 20 hours per week.

Students may work part-time (at 

least 20 hours per week) or fulltime in paid employment.

Students must work at least 20 

hours per week in unpaid 

employment.

Students must work at least 20 

hours per week.

Employment-reporting 

requirements

Students must report interruption 

of employment or any change in 

name or address to the 

designated school official 

(DSO).

Students must report interruption 

of employment or any change in 

name or address to the DSO.

Students must submit validation 

reports of all information to the 

DSO every 6 months and must 

report a change in name, address, 

or employment within 10 days of 

the change.d

Employers must agree to report 

the termination or departure of a 

student to the DSO within 48 

hours.

Unemployment Students do not accrue 

unemployment.

Students may not accrue more 

than 90 days of unemployment.

Students may not accrue more 

than 120 days of unemployment 

(including the 90 days allowed 

during the initial 12-month postcompletion OPT).

Termination of OPT Authorization is automatically 

terminated if the student transfers 

to another school or begins study 

at another level of study.

Authorization is automatically 

terminated if the student transfers 

to another school or begins study 

at another level of study.

Authorization is automatically 

terminated if the student transfers 

to another school or begins study 

at another level of study.

Source: GAO analysis of 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(10)(ii), (f)(12), (m)(14) and SEVP Policy Guidance 1004-03.

a

M visa students can work for a maximum of 6 months following completion of their program of study. 

b

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) maintains the Science, Technology, Engineering, and 

Mathematics (STEM)-Designated Degree Program List. This DHS list sets forth eligible courses of 
Page 12 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

study based on the Classification of Instructional Programs codes developed by the U.S. Department 

of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. DHS originally released this list in April 2008 

and last updated it in May 2012.

c

E-Verify is a free, largely voluntary, Internet-based system operated by the Verification Division of 

USCIS and the Social Security Administration. The goals of E-Verify are to (1) reduce the 

employment of individuals unauthorized to work, (2) reduce discrimination, (3) protect employee civil 

liberties and privacy, and (4) prevent undue burden on employers. See GAO, Employment 

Verification: Federal Agencies Have Taken Steps to Improve E-Verify, but Significant Challenges

Remain, GAO-11-146 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 17, 2010).

d

Validation reports include students’ employment and personal information.

As shown in figure 1, foreign students initiate the OPT application process 

by requesting a recommendation for OPT from their DSOs.22 The DSO is 

to ensure that students are eligible for the requested type and length of 

OPT and that the students are aware of their responsibilities for 

maintaining status while on OPT. ICE regulations do not require that 

students have secured employment prior to applying for pre-completion 

OPT or 12-month post-completion OPT; therefore, an employer name is 

not required to be entered in SEVIS at the time of the application. 

Regarding the 17-month STEM extension post-completion OPT, students 

must have secured employment prior to applying for this extension and 

must provide the employer’s name to the DSO. Prior to recommending 

the extension, the DSO must confirm that a student’s degree is a 

bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree that is in DHS’s STEMDesignated Degree Program list.23

 22See generally 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(11) for OPT application requirements.

The DSO makes the recommendation 

through SEVIS, which updates the student’s Form I-20 to reflect the 

recommendation. The DSO is to update the student’s SEVIS record with 

the student’s requested start and end dates of employment, as well as 

whether the employment will be part- or full-time. In the case of the 17-

month post-completion STEM extension OPT, the DSO is to enter and 

update employer information.

23This DHS list sets forth eligible courses of study based on the Classification of 

Instructional Programs codes developed by the U.S. Department of Education’s National 

Center for Education Statistics. 
Page 13 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Figure 1: Approval Process for a Foreign Student Seeking to Participate in Optional 

Practical Training (OPT)

a

A student may apply for pre-completion OPT up to 90 days before being enrolled for 1 full academic 

year, provided that the period of employment will not start prior to completion of the full academic 

year.

b

A student may apply for post-completion OPT up to 90 days before or up to 60 days after completing 

the program of study.

After receiving the Form I-20 that notates the DSO’s recommendation for 

OPT, the foreign student must file a Form I-765, Application for 

Employment Authorization, with USCIS within 30 days of the date the 

DSO enters the OPT recommendation into SEVIS and pay the required 

application fee.24

 24As of December 3, 2013, the filing fee for Form I-765 was $380.

USCIS adjudicates all nonimmigrants’ applications for 
Page 14 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

employment authorization by determining whether an applicant has 

submitted the required information and documentation, such as proof of 

the student’s financial support, and whether the applicant is eligible.25

Table 2: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) Receipts of 

Employment Authorization Applications for Optional Practical Training and 

Adjudication Results, Fiscal Years 2008 through 2013

Specifically, USCIS adjudicates the application for OPT employment 

authorization on the basis of the DSO’s recommendation and other 

eligibility considerations, such as whether the student can financially 

support himself or herself while on OPT, and for those students applying 

for the 17-month STEM post-completion extension, determining whether 

the employer is registered with E-Verify. Table 2 presents data on OPTrelated employment authorization application receipts and related 

adjudication results (approvals, denials, and revocations) from fiscal 

years 2008 through 2013. During this period, the data show that USCIS 

approved 96 percent of the applications for OPT employment

authorization. In fiscal year 2013, approximately 123,000 foreign students 

received approval from USCIS to seek temporary employment through 

OPT to complement their academic coursework.

Fiscal year Receipts Approvalsa Denialsb Revocationsc

2008 38,730 28,497 360 1

2009 87,636 90,896 2,125 71

2010 99,876 96,916 1,731 57

2011 109,895 105,357 2,226 67

2012 117,141 115,303 2,801 71

2013 128,591 123,328 3,400 77

Total 581,869 560,297 12,643 344

Source: USCIS Computer-Linked Application Information Management System 3 data.

a

Approvals are the number of applications that are approved during the reporting period. Approvals 

may include applications received in a previous fiscal year. For example, the number of approvals 

exceeded the number of applications received in fiscal year 2009.

b

Denials are the number of applications that are denied because of ineligibility or fraud during the 

reporting period

c

Revocations are the number of approved employment authorizations that are revoked, or canceled, 

during the reporting period. For example, approved employment authorizations can be revoked when 

it appears that any condition upon which employment authorization was granted has not been met or 

no longer exists or upon a showing that the information contained in the application is not true and 

correct.

 258 C.F.R. 214.2(f)(11)(iii).
Page 15 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

If USCIS approves the application, it issues the student an Employment 

Authorization Document, or Form I-766. Employment authorization for 

pre-completion OPT, 12-month post-completion OPT, and 17-month 

STEM extension post-completion OPT begins on the student’s requested 

date or the USCIS-approved date, whichever is later, and ends at the 

conclusion of the approved period of OPT.

SEVP has not identified or assessed risks associated with OPT, such as 

potential fraud or noncompliance with ICE regulations. Senior SEVP 

officials told us they consider OPT to be a low-risk employment benefit for 

foreign students because, in part, they believe foreign students under 

OPT do not have an incentive to jeopardize their foreign student visa 

status and future legal status to stay and work in the United States. 

However, SEVP has not developed a process to determine the extent to 

which schools that recommend and foreign students approved for OPT 

may pose risks.

Further, CTCEU officials and ICE field agents we interviewed at all seven 

ICE field offices in our review stated they believe OPT to be at risk for 

fraud and noncompliance based on their experience investigating these 

types of cases. Specifically, senior CTCEU officials stated that OPT is at 

risk for fraud and noncompliance, in part, because it enables eligible 

foreign students to work in the United States for extended periods of time 

without obtaining a temporary work visa. In addition, ICE field office 

agents we interviewed stated that foreign students approved for OPT 

present a risk for becoming overstays because they are allowed to work 

and remain in the United States for 12 to 31 months after graduation from 

school. Also, ICE agents and DSOs we interviewed stated that DSOs 

face greater challenges in monitoring foreign students in post-completion 

OPT because the students are no longer attending classes. Moreover, 

CTCEU officials stated that nonimmigrants are a vulnerable population 

that can be exploited by illegitimate companies or organizations that lure 

students to the United States with false promises of high-paying jobs and 

potential ways to stay in the country. For example, CTCEU officials stated 

that a recruiter or other third party may offer to help foreign students find 

OPT work for a fee or percentage of the foreign student’s salary once the 

student begins work under OPT. Additionally, SEVP’s compliance unit 

maintains a log of schools identified as potentially out of compliance with 

ICE regulations. As of September 2013, out of the 133 schools on the log, 

SEVP had identified 17 schools as potentially noncompliant with ICE 

regulations related to OPT.

ICE Has Not 

Identified or Assessed 

Risks in OPT
Page 16 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Further, CTCEU officials and ICE field agents we interviewed described 

various cases involving OPT that demonstrate their concerns with the 

management and oversight of OPT. For example, in a 2012 case, 

according to an ICE investigator, a school charged students for an OPT 

recommendation on the Form I-20 and for keeping students in status 

once they had entered the country, without requiring school attendance. 

In another case, in 2012, ICE investigators initiated an investigation after 

they received a complaint about a school’s noncompliance with OPT 

requirements, such as students not working in their area of study. In 

particular, ICE investigators found that the DSOs at the school would 

submit fraudulent Form I-20s to recommend students for OPT; however, 

the foreign students were not using OPT to work jobs related to their 

areas of study (e.g., a nursing student working in a pizza parlor), which is 

not allowed under ICE regulations. In a third case, in 2011, ICE field office 

investigators initiated an investigation of a school on the basis of 

information received from CBP that indicated that one of the school’s 

DSOs was allegedly providing documentation authorizing students to 

work in jobs not related to their major areas of study.

Using information obtained through prior ICE field offices’ investigations 

of schools’ and students’ noncompliance with ICE regulations and policy 

requirements, CTCEU officials have identified potential risk indicators 

specifically associated with OPT and stated they have provided this 

information to SEVP. Specifically, CTCEU officials stated they provided 

position papers on multiple occasions from 2011 through 2013 to SEVP 

officials expressing concerns about risks in SEVP in general and OPT in 

particular, including recommendations to help mitigate these risks. For 

example, in a position paper dated April 2013, CTCEU officials 

recommended to SEVP that DSOs enter the date on which USCIS grants 

OPT employment authorization in SEVIS to allow ICE and USCIS officials 

to compare this date with the date of enrollment to identify potential risks 

of students seeking to commit immigration fraud. Also, in April 2013, 

CTCEU briefed SEVP’s compliance officials on SEVP- and OPT-related 

risk indicators. For example, CTCEU officials identified that a certain 

threshold, or percentage, of a school’s foreign student population 

approved for OPT may be a potential indicator of fraud involving OPT.26

 26DHS deemed specific details about the threshold as sensitive; therefore, we did not 

include them in this report. 

According to our analysis of SEVIS data, as of August 2013, of the
Page 17 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

approximately 2,650 SEVP-certified schools with at least 1 foreign 

student approved for OPT, the percentage of each school’s registered 

foreign students approved for OPT met or exceeded the threshold

identified by CTCEU at 193 schools. Of the 193 schools, 100 percent of 

registered foreign students were approved for OPT at 60 schools; most of 

these schools had 4 or fewer total foreign students, except for 1 school, 

where the data show that all 35 of the school’s foreign students were 

approved for OPT. The Deputy Director of SEVP agreed that the 

percentage of a school’s foreign student population approved for OPT 

could be an indicator of potential fraud.

In November 2013, the Deputy Director of SEVP stated that, in response 

to the recommendation from our June 2012 report that ICE develop and 

implement a process to identify and assess risks in SEVP, SEVP has 

taken initial actions to identify potential risks across SEVP-certified 

schools by developing a risk scorecard by which to assess schools and 

preliminary risk indicators to classify SEVP-certified schools by risk 

category. While these are positive steps taken in response to our June 

2012 recommendation, SEVP is in the early stages of developing this risk 

scorecard and the risk indicators, and these efforts are focused on 

identifying potential risks to SEVP overall. As part of these efforts, SEVP 

officials have not identified and assessed potential risks specific to OPT 

posed by schools and foreign students or determined the extent to which 

the office will include potential OPT risks as part of their efforts to assess 

risks SEVP-wide. Senior SEVP officials told us they have not identified 

and assessed risks specific to OPT because they have not considered 

OPT to be a high-risk employment benefit; however, SEVP has not 

developed or implemented a risk management process to determine 

potential risks in OPT. Furthermore, on the basis of information from ICE 

field office investigations, CTCEU officials have identified SEVP- and 

OPT-related risks, but, as of November 2013, senior SEVP officials told 

us they had not yet incorporated CTCEU’s input, including relevant 

information from ICE field offices, into their efforts to assess potential 

SEVP-wide risks because they preferred to develop and implement a 

process to identify and assess risks in SEVP on their own before 

coordinating with CTCEU. DHS’s 2010 Policy for Integrated Risk 

Management27 and 2011 Risk Management Fundamentals28

 27Department of Homeland Security, DHS Policy for Integrated Risk Management

(Washington, D.C.: May 27, 2010).

establish 
Page 18 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

DHS’s policy and guidance on risk. They instruct DHS and its 

components to incorporate a risk management process to their planning

and management activities that includes, among other things, identifying 

the risks associated with goals and objectives, analyzing and assessing 

the identified risks, and using risk information and analysis to inform 

decision making. Also, DHS’s Policy for Integrated Risk Management is 

based on the premise that entities responsible for homeland security can 

most effectively manage risks by working together, and emphasizes that 

DHS and its components are to effectively communicate with 

stakeholders, partners, and customers within and throughout the risk 

management process. Without identifying and assessing risks in OPT in 

coordination with CTCEU, SEVP is not well positioned to incorporate a 

risk management process into its management of OPT. Further, obtaining 

and assessing risk information from CTCEU and ICE field offices from 

prior noncompliance and fraud cases involving OPT throughout the 

development of its process to identify and assess risks in SEVP, to 

include OPT, could better position SEVP to manage any risks associated 

with OPT.

ICE does not consistently collect information needed to oversee OPT 

requirements related to the type and timing of foreign students’ 

employment, as ICE regulations do not specifically require the collection 

of information on foreign students’ places and dates of employment in 

SEVIS. Such information could help ICE to better ensure that foreign 

 28Department of Homeland Security, DHS Risk Management Fundamentals: Homeland 

Security Risk Management Doctrine (Washington, D.C.: April 2011). 

ICE Cannot Fully 

Ensure Foreign 

Students Working 

under Optional 

Practical Training Are 

Maintaining Their 

Legal Status in the 

United States

ICE Does Not Consistently 

Collect Information 

Needed to Oversee OPT 

Requirements 
Page 19 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

students are maintaining their legal status in the United States and to 

identify and assess potential risks to OPT. 

As indicated in table 3, SEVIS data on foreign students approved for the 

three types of OPT show that 38 percent of student records (48,642 of 

126,796) do not contain an employer name, as of August 2013. 

Specifically, according to our analysis, the employer’s name is not 

included in 65 percent and 48 percent of pre- and 12-month postcompletion OPT students’ SEVIS records, respectively. Foreign students 

are not required to have secured a job before seeking pre- and 12-month 

post-completion OPT, and an employer name is not required of the 

student at the time of application. Because 17-month STEM extension 

students are required to have employment prior to application and have 

ongoing reporting requirements, employer information is more complete, 

with less than 1 percent of student records missing the employer name.

Table 3: Employer Name in Student Records by Type of Optional Practical Training (OPT), as of August 2013

Records not containing 

employer name

Records containing 

employer name

Total number of foreign 

students

Pre-completion OPT 940 (65 percent) 500 (35 percent) 1,440

Post-completion OPT

12-month post-completion 47,686

(48 percent)

52,589

(52 percent)

100,275

17-month science, technology, 

engineering, and mathematics extension

16

(less than

1 percent)

25,065

(almost

100 percent)

25,081

Total 48,642

(38 percent)

78,154

(62 percent)

126,796

Source: GAO analysis of Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) student record data for OPT, as of August 2013.

In addition to noting the lack of employers’ names, our analysis of SEVIS 

data indicates that other information about employers that would be 

helpful to identify where foreign students are working, such as the 

physical address that can be used to differentiate between two employers 

with the same name, is not consistently collected and maintained in 

SEVIS. For example, of the 62 percent of student records that have the 

employer’s name populated, approximately 5 percent of those records 

(3,545 of 78,154) do not include other information on the employer, such 

as the employer’s address, state, city, and postal code. In addition, for all 

three types of OPT, ICE regulations and policy do not specifically require 
Page 20 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

students to report to their DSOs when they begin or stop working, and do 

not require DSOs to enter those corresponding dates into SEVIS.29

Without information on employers or employment start and end dates,

ICE’s ability to oversee requirements for OPT is limited.

Job directly related to major area of study. ICE requires DSOs to 

ensure that a student is eligible prior to recommending OPT, and remains 

eligible for the duration of OPT, by being employed in a job directly 

related to his or her major area of study. ICE regulations and policy state 

that DSOs are responsible for reporting in SEVIS subsequent known 

changes in a student’s name and address, employer name and address, 

and known instances of a student’s failure to report to work. Specifically 

for students seeking the 17-month STEM extension of OPT, SEVP and 

USCIS require that DSOs enter the students’ employer information in 

SEVIS prior to recommending OPT, and SEVP requires regular 

confirmation of such students’ personal and employer information 

throughout the time of OPT. Although ICE regulations and policy require 

DSOs to ensure students’ eligibility and to report known changes in 

students’ employer information, they do not require that students report 

and DSOs provide students’ initial employer information (name and 

address, for example) in SEVIS for students pursuing pre- or 12-month 

post-completion OPT. According to SEVP officials, requiring this initial 

employer information for pre- and 12-month post-completion could place 

an additional burden or requirement on DSOs. Thus, SEVP officials 

stated that their office would prefer to make this type of change through 

regulation rather than policy. SEVP officials stated that, in general, 

changing regulatory language has been difficult and time consuming. 

However, previous regulatory changes that created the 17-month STEM 

extension, for example, have been implemented and added reporting 

requirements in SEVIS for employer information for foreign students 

approved for this extension.30

 29ICE regulations state that students authorized for OPT are required to report 

interruptions in employment to DSOs and that DSOs are responsible for updating student 

records to reflect these reported changes, but they do not specifically require the reporting 

of employment start and end dates. See 8 C.F.R. §§ 214.2(f)(12)(i), 214.3(g)(2)(ii).

As of August 2013, approximately 20 

percent of all OPT students were approved for the STEM extension and, 

30Extending Period of Optional Practical Training by 17 Months for F-1 Nonimmigrant 

Students With STEM Degrees and Expanding Cap-Gap Relief for All F-1 Students With 

Pending H-1B Petitions, 73 Fed. Reg. 18,944 (Apr. 8, 2008).
Page 21 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

according to our analysis of SEVIS data, almost 100 percent of SEVIS 

records for those students have the employment information as required 

by regulation for OPT students who have been approved for the STEM 

extension.

ICE regulations and policy require that DSOs ensure that a foreign 

student is eligible for OPT and assume responsibility for maintaining the 

student’s SEVIS record for the entire period of authorized OPT. ICE 

regulations and policy also require all OPT employment to be in a job that 

is directly related to the foreign student’s area of study. However, ICE has 

not provided guidance to DSOs to help determine and document whether 

the student’s job is related to his or her area of study. Requirements for 

DSOs to collect information on how a job is related to an area of study 

and guidance on how DSOs should provide such information in SEVIS 

could help provide ICE with reasonable assurance that foreign students 

engaged in OPT are working in jobs directly related to their area of study, 

as required under OPT. In addition to fields for foreign students’ employer 

name and address, SEVIS has two fields for DSOs to add comments or 

remarks regarding students’ employment; however, ICE does not require 

DSOs to provide any information on how DSOs arrived at the 

determination that students’ jobs relate to their studies in these SEVIS 

fields. According to SEVP officials and the program’s DSO training 

materials, DSOs could use these two SEVIS fields to explain how a 

student’s employment relates to the student’s program of study. 

According to our analysis of the two fields available in SEVIS for DSOs to 

enter remarks or comments regarding students’ OPT employment, we 

found that 27 percent of foreign students’ records (34,454 of 126,796) did 

not have any information in either field, as shown in table 4.

Table 4: Student Records for Optional Practical Training (OPT) Students Containing Information in Employment Comment 

and Remark Fields, as of August 2013

Percentage of student 

records with employment 

comment field blank

Percentage of student 

records with employment 

remark

field blank

Percentage of student 

records with both fields 

blank

Pre-completion OPT 58 41 26

Post-completion OPT

12-month post-completion 61 38 28

17-month science, technology, 

engineering and mathematics extension

100 23 23

Total 69 (87,068 of 126,796) 35 (44,676 of 126,796) 27 (34,454 of 126,796)

Source: GAO analysis of Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) student record data for OPT, as of August 2013.
Page 22 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Although information is included in at least one of the employment 

comment or remark fields for the majority of student records, this 

information may not be relevant to whether students’ employment is 

related to their studies. SEVP has not developed or provided guidance for 

DSOs on how to determine whether a student’s job is related to his or her 

program of study and has provided limited guidance on how to report this 

information in SEVIS using the existing fields. Specifically, SEVP’s 

guidance on OPT recommends that students maintain evidence for how 

each job is related, including a job description, but is limited in that it does 

not direct students to report this information to DSOs or DSOs to enter 

this information into SEVIS. In addition, SEVP’s DSO training materials 

state that DSOs should use the remarks area in SEVIS to explain how the 

work relates to the students’ studies. However, the training materials are 

limited in that they do not detail both SEVIS fields that are available. In 

addition, the materials do not provide guidance on how DSOs should 

show that they took steps to help ensure that students’ jobs are related. 

Federal internal control standards state that federal agencies should, 

among other things, design and document internal control activities, such 

as guidance, to help ensure compliance with applicable laws and 

regulations.31

Because ICE has not required information on how students’ jobs are 

related to their studies and SEVP has provided limited guidance on how 

to provide this information in SEVIS, ICE does not have information 

needed to oversee OPT even when employer information is included in 

SEVIS. For example, we examined those student records for which an 

employer name was included for certain industries in which CTCEU 

officials were concerned about the potential of students working in 

unrelated jobs. According to our analysis, we found cases in which the 

SEVIS record indicated that students may not be complying with ICE’s 

SEVP officials stated that determining whether a job is 

directly related to a program of study is not defined in the regulations and 

would be too difficult to define in policy because it is a subjective process. 

Therefore, ICE has not required DSOs to provide this information in 

SEVIS. 

 31GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1. 
Page 23 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

regulatory requirement.32

Limits on unemployment. ICE has set forth limits on unemployment in 

its OPT-related regulations. Specifically, 12-month post-completion OPT 

students may not exceed 90 days of accrued unemployment during their 

authorized employment period, and 17-month STEM extension postcompletion OPT students may not exceed 120 days of unemployment 

(which includes any unemployment accrued during the initial 12-month 

OPT period). These unemployment limits were added to the ICE 

regulations in April 2008 to clarify that, if a student accumulates too much 

unemployment while remaining in the country under the OPT employment 

benefit, the student has violated his or her status. Although ICE policy 

provides instruction on how a student and DSO may report and record 

dates of employment or unemployment, ICE regulations and policy do not 

specifically require foreign students to report to their DSOs when they 

begin working or DSOs to enter those corresponding dates in SEVIS.

Specifically, we found 35 cases in which 

students with degrees in fields such as economics, liberal arts, and 

psychology were working in food service and the SEVIS record did not 

include information as to how the employment was related to their field of 

study. We also found 9 cases in which students with degrees in fields 

such as computer science, engineering, and international studies were 

working in retail without an explanation included in the SEVIS record. 

However, we also found a case in which the student’s SEVIS record 

indicated that the individual, who had a degree in music, was working for 

a restaurant, but the employment remark field described the student’s 

employment as being a member of the restaurant’s house band. 

Developing and distributing guidance to DSOs with options on how to 

determine whether a job is related to the foreign student’s area of study 

and requiring DSOs to provide information in SEVIS to show that they 

took steps to help ensure that the work is related could help provide ICE 

with the information it could use to oversee OPT requirements.

 32CTCEU officials stated that many students engaged in OPT are working in food service 

or retail. We looked at a sample of 158 student records, selected based on whether the 

employer name was included and that it indicated employment in select food service or 

retail industries. This is a select sample and is not representative of all records indicating a 

student is working in the food service or retail industries. From this sample, we determined 

that 44 student records did not include additional employment information in the SEVIS 

employment comment or employment remark fields to explain why the job was related to 

the field of study or that the student’s field of study was not considered to be directly 

related to either food service or retail. Appendix I presents more details about our 

methodology.
Page 24 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Furthermore, SEVP’s policy specifically states that DHS maintains 

responsibility for determining whether a student has violated his or her 

status by exceeding the permissible limit on authorized unemployment. 

Federal internal control standards state that federal agencies should, 

among other things, design and document internal control activities to 

help ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.33 The dates 

on which authorization for employment from USCIS begins and ends are 

included in students’ SEVIS records; however, ICE does not have a 

mechanism to capture the date on which a student who was granted 

authorization actually started working or data on periods when a student 

is unemployed. According to SEVP officials and 12 DSOs with whom we 

spoke, it can be difficult for a DSO to maintain contact with students 

approved for OPT, particularly if a student engaged in post-completion 

OPT is no longer attending classes at the school and works off-campus 

for up to more than 2 years in another city or state. However, ICE’s 

regulations state that when a DSO recommends a student for OPT, the 

school—which includes its DSOs—assumes the added responsibility for 

maintaining the SEVIS record of that student for the entire period of 

authorized OPT.34

 33

SEVP officials also stated that ICE’s ability to oversee 

foreign students’ unemployment time using SEVIS may be limited 

because the system does not systematically capture information from 

DSOs that may be used to calculate the accumulation of unemployment 

time. However, SEVP officials stated that SEVIS could be used to identify 

foreign students on post-completion OPT who have not had an employer 

listed for more than 90 or 120 days. According to SEVP officials, this 

mechanism would allow SEVP to track the initial unemployment of a 

student seeking work after receiving OPT employment authorization. As a 

result of not having complete data on foreign students’ initial employment 

dates or any subsequent unemployment dates, SEVP officials stated that 

they have not fully enforced these regulatory limits on unemployment. 

Requiring students to report to DSOs, and DSOs to record in SEVIS, 

students’ initial date of employment and any periods of unemployment 

could better position ICE to be able to oversee program requirements.

GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1.

34ICE’s regulations and policy do not require schools and DSOs to recommend OPT to all 

eligible foreign students who apply; schools have the discretion as to whether or not to 

recommend foreign students for OPT.
Page 25 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Foreign students approved for OPT, especially those approved for the 

two post-completion types of OPT, are allowed to remain in the United 

States after the completion of their studies to pursue employment yet 

remain on a student visa with the understanding that they are complying 

with OPT requirements. Without consistent information on where students 

are employed and when students begin employment, ICE is not 

positioned to oversee these requirements.

ICE has not developed mechanisms to consistently monitor whether 

schools and DSOs recommend OPT for foreign students and whether 

USCIS authorizes employment for foreign students that is permitted 

under ICE regulations. ICE requires DSOs to ensure students are eligible 

for the requested type and time of OPT prior to recommending it. After 

receiving the DSOs’ recommendation, students apply for and may receive 

employment authorization with USCIS. Through this process, DSOs and 

USCIS are to provide information on foreign students’ type and period of 

OPT in SEVIS. However, ICE does not monitor whether DSOs and 

foreign students are complying with requirements that students (1) have 

been in their program of study for at least 1 academic year prior to 

receiving authorization and (2) complete their OPT within certain time 

frames established by the type of OPT.35

One full academic year requirement. As previously mentioned, ICE 

requires that OPT be authorized only for a student who has been lawfully 

enrolled on a full-time basis in a SEVP-certified college, university, 

conservatory, or seminary for 1 full academic year in order to ensure that 

those seeking OPT employment are primarily in the United States on 

student visas to pursue their education.36

 35DHS deemed information on actions it could take related to foreign students’ school 

transfers as sensitive; therefore, we did not include this information in this report.

However, ICE regulations and 

policy do not define and SEVP has not provided OPT-specific guidance to 

DSOs on what constitutes 1 full academic year for SEVP-certified 

schools. According to SEVP officials, ICE has not developed or provided 

specific guidance because the various types of programs have different 

academic schedules and any guidance may not apply universally to all 

schools. However, SEVP officials stated that they use definitions from the 

Department of Education when fielding DSOs’ questions on this issue. In 

36Students in English language training programs are not eligible for OPT, and M visa 

students are eligible for OPT only upon completion of their course of study.

ICE Does Not Monitor 

whether Foreign Students’ 

Authorized Employment 

Complies with ICE 

Regulations
Page 26 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

November 2013, SEVP drafted and released for comment guidance 

regarding annual vacations that includes these Department of Education 

definitions of how much time typically constitutes 1 full academic year.37

However, this draft guidance does not directly apply to the regulatory 

requirement of completing 1 full academic year to be eligible for OPT. 

Because ICE’s OPT-related regulations and policy do not define 1 full 

academic year for the various types of programs and schedules for 

SEVP-certified schools, DSOs and USCIS may not be clear as to how the 

Department of Education’s definitions specifically apply to approving and 

authorizing employment for foreign students seeking OPT. Therefore, 

students may be engaging in OPT without having completed the required 

time in their programs. Our analysis of SEVIS records as of August 2013 

indicates that DSOs marked 556 students’ records as not meeting the 

requirement of having completed 1 full academic year prior to engaging in 

OPT.38

 37The Department of Education defines an academic year as the amount of time a student 

must complete each year, and the time period in which the student is expected to 

complete it, as defined by the school. For example, the school’s academic year may be 

made up of a fall and spring semester, during which a full-time undergraduate student is 

expected to complete at least 24 semester hours over the course of 30 weeks of 

instruction time. Academic years may change from school to school and from program to 

program; however, two semesters typically span approximately 8 to 9 months of the year. 

Further, according to our analysis of time between the program 

start date to employment start date for students authorized for OPT, 

1,446 additional students have not been enrolled in their program for at 

least 8 months (what we consider to be 1 academic year based on SEVP 

officials’ estimates) prior to beginning OPT. On the basis of our two 

analyses, over 2,000 foreign students approved for OPT may not have

met the requirement of having completed 1 full academic year. According 

to SEVP officials, this requirement applies only once to a foreign student. 

For instance, if a student was previously in the United States on another 

visa in which he or she could attend school, the time spent in an 

educational program would count toward the 1 full academic year 

requirement. Also, according to SEVP officials, a student may have met 

the requirement thorough a combination of enrollment in a previous 

program and his or her current program of study. However, ICE 

regulations and policy do not specifically list this type of exemption. 

38SEVIS has a field for which the DSO may indicate that the student has or has not met 

the 1 full academic year requirement by marking “Yes” or “No.” This field is not 

compulsory, and a DSO is not required to mark “Yes” prior to recommending OPT. 

According to our analysis, 25,070 student records did not indicate whether the student had 

or had not met the 1-full-academic year requirement.
Page 27 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Furthermore, SEVP’s guidance to DSOs specifically states that there is 

no exemption to the requirement that a student have been enrolled for 1 

full academic year. Furthermore, federal internal control standards state 

that federal agencies should design and document guidance that would 

help to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.39

Time frames for post-completion OPT. ICE regulations state that 

foreign students may be authorized for 12 months of OPT employment, 

which must be completed within 14 months following the completion of 

their program.

Developing and providing guidance to DSOs and USCIS on what 

constitutes 1 full academic year and how to apply this definition to 

recommending and authorizing OPT could help ICE better ensure that 

foreign students meet eligibility requirements for OPT.

40 Students engaged in the STEM extension are granted an 

additional one-time 17-month period of OPT employment, for a total of 29 

months of total approved employment. This STEM extension must be 

applied directly following the end of the initially approved 12-month postcompletion OPT and be completed in 31 months following the completion 

of his or her program. Our analysis of SEVIS student record data as of 

August 2013 shows that 9 percent of student records have authorized 

post-completion OPT employment dates that exceed the regulatory limits 

of total approved OPT and 8 percent of student records will not complete 

their OPT employment by the regulatory limits of 14 or 31 months, as 

shown in table 5.41

 39GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1

40M visa students may be authorized up to 6 months of post-completion OPT and are not 

eligible for pre-completion or an extension of OPT.

41According to SEVP’s guidance to DSOs, this 14-month limit provides a 2-month buffer to 

allow time for USCIS’s adjudication of the student’s application for employment 

authorization. However, if the application and adjudication time takes 3 months from the 

end of the student’s program, the student should be approved for 11 months of OPT. 

USCIS standard operating procedures for adjudicating employment authorization 

applications explain how previously approved OPT should affect eligibility for additional 

OPT. According to SEVP’s guidance and USCIS’s procedures, if the student engaged in 

pre-completion part-time OPT employment for 12 months (which would equate to 6 

months of full-time OPT), the student should be approved for 6 months of post-completion 

OPT.
Page 28 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

Table 5: Student Records for Optional Practical Training (OPT) Students’ Dates of Educational Program and Employment, as 

of August 2013

Records with OPT start

and end dates exceeding limit

(12 months or 17 months)

Records with program end

and OPT end dates exceeding limit

(14 months or 31 months)

Post-completion OPT

12-month post-completion 8,996

(9 percent)

8,107

(8 percent)

17-month science, technology, engineering, 

and mathematics extension

2,416

(10 percent)

2,411

(10 percent)

Total 11,412

(9 percent)

10,518

(8 percent)

Source: GAO analysis of Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) student record data for OPT, as of August 2013.

Furthermore, our analysis shows 10 percent of students engaged in 17-

month STEM extension OPT had work approvals that exceeded the 17 

months allowed by ICE regulations and policy, and 10 percent of students 

would not complete their OPT within 31 months from the end of their 

program. According to SEVP officials, these extended periods of OPT 

may be explained by students’ using the cap-gap extension to extend 

employment authorization through the fiscal year while petitions filed on 

their behalf for a nonimmigrant employment visa are pending.42

 428 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(5)(vi) states that the lawful status and any post completion or STEM 

OPT employment authorization of an F student who is the beneficiary of an H-1B petition 

and request for change of status shall be automatically extended until October 1 of the 

fiscal year for which such H-1B visa is being requested, which is referred to as the capgap extension. This automatic extension of lawful status and OPT employment 

authorization is to immediately terminate upon the rejection, denial, or revocation of the H1B petition filed on such student’s behalf. 

SEVP 

officials stated that if a foreign student was approved for the cap-gap 

extension, the student’s SEVIS record should indicate such approval and 

the employment end date would be adjusted to include the extension. 

This approval, and subsequent extension, may cause the student’s 
Page 29 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

employment authorization dates to potentially exceed the 12- or 17-month 

limits. However, our analysis of the SEVIS records shows that those 

students, included in table 5, who have periods of employment 

authorization exceeding regulatory and policy limits for OPT, did not have 

approval for the cap-gap extension.

Although SEVIS shows a student’s current OPT approval, the system

does not display students’ past OPT approvals (previous pre-completion,

for example) for the purpose of determining if a student has exceeded 

total limits on accrued work authorization. According to SEVP and USCIS 

officials, both rely on DSOs to track a student’s total amount of OPT and 

to recommend the appropriate amount of OPT for students depending on 

previously accrued OPT so as not to exceed regulatory limits. According 

to USCIS officials, it may check previous employment authorization 

applications by searching in CLAIMS or the Central Index System for an 

individual’s name; however, it relies on DSOs to recommend the allowed 

amount of OPT.43

Foreign students approved for OPT are allowed to work in the United 

States while maintaining their student visa status in order to supplement 

their education with practical training with the understanding that these 

students, and the schools and DSOs that have responsibility for these 

students, are complying with certain OPT requirements. Federal internal 

control standards state that agencies should design controls, including 

policies and procedures, to ensure that ongoing monitoring occurs in the 

course of normal operations.

Without developing and implementing a mechanism to 

monitor available information collected in SEVIS to determine total 

amounts of approved OPT over the course of students’ duration of stay, 

ICE does not have reasonable assurance that DSOs are implementing 

and students are complying with the regulatory limits on accrued 

employment approval. For example, students who may have engaged in 

the full amount of allowed OPT may leave the country, reapply to another 

school at the same education level, enter the country under a new I-20 

and SEVIS identification number, enroll in a program for 1 academic year, 

and apply for OPT with the new program.

44

 43USCIS maintains the Central Index System, a database system originally developed by 

the predecessor Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Central Index System 

contains information on the status of applicants/petitioners seeking immigration benefits, 

including aliens who have been issued employment authorization documents. 

Developing and implementing a 

44GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1
Page 30 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

mechanism to monitor available information collected in SEVIS about 

OPT that DSOs recommend and USCIS authorizes for foreign students

could better position ICE to help ensure that foreign students do not 

exceed regulatory limits on the amount of time students are approved for 

work. 

OPT, which is an employment benefit, provides certain eligible foreign 

students with the opportunity to seek temporary work to gain practical 

experience in their major areas of study during and after completing an 

academic program. A foreign student in post-completion OPT, in 

particular, is not required to leave the United States following graduation 

and can remain in the United States for the entire post-completion OPT 

period. Effective oversight of schools that recommend and foreign 

students who are approved for OPT entails identifying and assessing any 

potential risks, including opportunities for criminal exploitation, and being 

in a position to mitigate them. ICE has taken initial actions to identify risks 

across SEVP-certified schools; however, ICE has not analyzed available 

information to identify and assess potential risks specific to OPT posed by 

schools and foreign students. Identifying and assessing OPT-specific 

risks based on various factors, including risk information from CTCEU, 

could better position ICE to determine actions to help prevent OPTrelated noncompliance and fraud and to address such noncompliance 

and fraud when they occur.

Moreover, ICE could take steps to improve its ability to help ensure that 

foreign students working under OPT are complying with OPT 

requirements and thereby maintaining their legal status in the United 

States. By consistently collecting information in SEVIS that indicates 

foreign students’ employers, how employment is related to these 

students’ studies, initial date of employment, and any dates of 

unemployment, ICE could better position itself to oversee the OPT 

requirements that foreign students are actively working in areas related to 

their studies and not exceeding limits on unemployment. Furthermore, by 

monitoring through analysis other OPT information, ICE could better 

ensure that schools and DSOs recommend OPT for foreign students and 

USCIS authorizes employment for foreign students that is permissible 

under ICE regulations. By collecting the appropriate information in SEVIS 

and monitoring such information for compliance, ICE may better position 

itself to determine whether foreign students approved for OPT are 

maintaining their legal student visa status while supplementing their 

education with employment directly related to their areas of study in the 

United States. Moreover, having more complete data in SEVIS on foreign 

Conclusions
Page 31 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

students working under OPT could help strengthen ICE’s efforts to 

identify and assess potential risks to OPT.

To strengthen ICE’s efforts to develop and implement a process to 

identify and assess risks in SEVP, we recommend that the Director of ICE 

direct SEVP, in coordination with CTCEU, to identify and assess potential 

risks in OPT, including obtaining and assessing relevant information from 

CTCEU and ICE field offices.

To better ensure DSOs’ and students’ compliance with OPT 

requirements, and strengthen efforts to identify and assess potential risks 

in OPT, we recommend that the Director of ICE direct SEVP to take the 

following five actions:45

• require that pre-completion and 12-month post-completion OPT 

students report to DSOs, and DSOs record in SEVIS, students’ 

employer information, including the employer’s name and address;

• develop and distribute guidance to DSOs on how to determine 

whether a job is related to a student’s area of study and require DSOs 

to provide information in SEVIS to show that they took steps, based 

on this guidance, to help ensure that the student’s work is related to 

the area of study;

• require that students report to DSOs, and DSOs record in SEVIS, 

students’ initial date of employment and any periods of 

unemployment;

• develop and provide guidance to DSOs and USCIS on how much time 

constitutes 1 full academic year for the purposes of recommending 

and authorizing OPT; and

• develop and implement a mechanism to monitor available information 

in SEVIS to determine if foreign students are accruing more OPT than 

allowed by ICE regulations.

 45DHS deemed information on actions it could take related to foreign students’ school 

transfers as sensitive; therefore, we did not include this information in this report.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action
Page 32 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

We provided a draft of this report to DHS and the Department of State for 

their review and comment. DHS provided written comments, which are 

reproduced in full in appendix II. DHS concurred with our six 

recommendations and described actions under way or planned to 

address them. For example, DHS indicated that, as part of ongoing efforts 

to develop an overall risk management program, SEVP will work with 

CTCEU in developing factors to identify risks for schools and students 

associated with OPT. Also, DHS noted that the functionality to track OPT 

employment information, including the employer’s name and address, 

dates of employment, and any periods of unemployment, have been 

incorporated into SEVIS and that the software that includes the required 

data fields is scheduled to be released in 2014. In addition, DHS indicated 

that SEVP will issue guidance to assist DSOs in collecting information on 

students’ employment for reporting in SEVIS and to clarify what periods of 

enrollment qualify as 1 full academic year. These and other actions noted

in DHS’s written comments should help address the intent of our 

recommendations. DHS also provided technical comments, which were 

incorporated as appropriate.

The Department of State did not have formal comments on our draft 

report.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until thirty days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies to the Secretaries of 

Homeland Security and State, and appropriate congressional committees. 

In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-8777 or gamblerr@gao.gov. Contact points for 

our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 

on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made significant 

contributions to this report are listed in appendix III.

Sincerely yours, 

Rebecca Gambler

Director, Homeland Security and Justice

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 33 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

This report examines the extent to which the Department of Homeland 

Security (DHS) has (1) identified and assessed risks associated with 

optional practical training (OPT), and (2) collected information and 

developed monitoring mechanisms to help ensure students comply with 

OPT requirements and maintain their legal status in the United States.

To determine the extent to which DHS’s Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement (ICE) has identified and assessed risks in ICE’s Student and 

Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) specifically related to OPT, we 

analyzed program documentation, analyzed data, and interviewed 

officials from DHS and its relevant components, including U.S. Citizenship 

and Immigration Services (USCIS) and ICE. In particular, we analyzed 

ICE and SEVP documentation, such as standard operating procedures, 

policy statements, and guidance for agency officials and designated 

school officials (DSO), to determine how ICE’s processes identify and 

assess risk related to OPT in SEVP.

In addition, to evaluate the extent to which ICE has identified and 

assessed risks related to OPT, we collected and evaluated information on 

SEVP compliance and watch lists that contain schools that SEVP has 

identified as potentially noncompliant or fraudulent and previous cases of 

OPT-related fraud through obtaining and analyzing documents and 

interviewing investigators from ICE’s Counterterrorism and Compliance 

Enforcement Unit (CTCEU). Also, we analyzed documentation CTCEU 

officials provided regarding risks and vulnerabilities they have identified in 

OPT-related policies, procedures, and regulations during the course of 

their work. In addition, we analyzed ICE news bulletins from January 

2008 to November 2013 to help determine the magnitude of previous 

cases of fraud and evaluated information provided by CTCEU on criminal 

investigations related to school or student noncompliance or fraud 

involving OPT. Moreover, we collected and analyzed Student and 

Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) data on schools that had at 

least one foreign student approved for OPT, as of August 2013, to identify 

examples of schools that pose a potential risk for fraud or noncompliance 

involving OPT using a risk indicator identified by CTCEU. Also, we 

interviewed officials from CTCEU and investigators from 7 of ICE’s 26

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) field offices. Specifically, we 

conducted telephone interviews with ICE field offices located in Atlanta, 

Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles and San Francisco, 

California; Newark, New Jersey; and New York, New York. We also 

conducted a telephone interview with an official from the ICE resident 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 34 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

agent in charge field office in Charleston, West Virginia, which is under 

the supervision of the ICE field office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We 

selected these locations based on the following criteria: (1) CTCEU 

officials identified the ICE field office as having previous or ongoing 

experience with school fraud and (2) SEVP identified the ICE field office 

as currently investigating a school in SEVP’s compliance case log. As we 

did not select a probability sample of ICE field offices to interview, the 

results of these interviews cannot be projected to all of ICE’s 26 field 

offices. While the information we obtained from officials at these locations 

cannot be generalized, the interviews provided us with the perspectives of 

ICE officials responsible for conducting school and student fraud 

investigations, including their views on the management and oversight 

SEVP has established for schools and students involved in OPT and any 

challenges ICE field offices have faced in their investigations. We also 

evaluated the extent to which ICE’s practices were consistent with DHS’s 

2010 Policy for Integrated Risk Management and 2011 Risk Management 

Fundamentals.

1

To determine the extent to which ICE has collected information and 

developed monitoring mechanisms to help ensure students comply with 

OPT requirements and maintain their legal status in the United States, we 

also analyzed program documentation, analyzed data, and interviewed 

officials from DHS and its components. As part of our effort to evaluate 

these processes that SEVP uses to manage and oversee students 

approved for OPT, we reviewed applicable regulations, such as those 

governing nonimmigrant visa classes and schools recommending 

students engaging in OPT.2

We analyzed data from SEVIS to identify nonimmigrant foreign students 

under F and M visas who were authorized by USCIS to engage in OPT as 

of August 2013. We assessed the reliability of these data by (1) reviewing 

In addition, we reviewed SEVP’s internal 

policy and guidance documents specifically concerning management and 

oversight of OPT. We compared these policies with criteria established in 

regulations, as well as with criteria in Standards for Internal Control in the 

Federal Government.

 1

Department of Homeland Security, DHS Policy for Integrated Risk Management

(Washington, D.C.: May 27, 2010), and DHS Risk Management Fundamentals: Homeland 

Security Risk Management Doctrine (Washington, D.C.: April 2011).

2

The regulations governing nonimmigrant classes and OPT are found in 8 C.F.R. pt. 214. 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 35 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

existing documentation on the controls in the system and the policies for 

ensuring data reliability; (2) interviewing agency officials about the data’s 

sources, the system’s controls, and any quality assurance steps 

performed after data are entered into the system; and (3) testing the data 

for missing data, outliers, or obvious errors. We identified several 

limitations to the data resulting from ICE’s process by which schools’ 

DSOs are responsible for data entry and updates. SEVIS is used by 

schools to apply for and receive SEVP certification, as well as for DSOs 

to keep records of individual students who enter the United States on F 

and M visas. Although SEVP officials may make edits to a student’s 

SEVIS record in some cases, all data or information entries on students 

are the responsibility of DSOs. Therefore, data elements that are not 

required may be missing or invalidly entered. For example, entries for 

schools’ physical locations may not be valid U.S. postal addresses. 

Furthermore, some SEVIS records may be duplicated because of 

students changing from one type of OPT to another. However, we were 

able to address this issue with duplicates by removing the record that was 

less accurate and up to date. While we identified such limitations, we 

found the data to be sufficiently reliable for providing descriptive 

information on the population of SEVP-certified schools that have 

recommended OPT and of foreign students engaged in OPT. We also 

found the data to be sufficiently reliable for analyzing student records for 

compliance with certain regulatory and policy requirements. We focused 

our analysis on several SEVIS fields related to management and 

oversight of foreign students engaged in OPT: (1) employer name and 

location, (2) remarks and comments on employment, and (3) dates of 

program of study and authorized OPT employment.

We also analyzed student records for which an employer name was 

included and belonged in industries such as food service and retail, 

industries in which CTCEU officials were concerned about the potential of 

students working in unrelated jobs. We analyzed a sample of 158 student 

records in which the employer name field indicated the student worked in 

select food service or retail industries. This is a select sample and is not 

representative of all records indicating a student is working in the food 

service or retail industries. We identified this sample by searching the 

SEVIS data of foreign students authorized to engage in OPT as of August 

2013 for employers names with key words such as “restaurant,” “café,” 

“coffee,” “pizza,” and “burger,” as well as for select retailers. This search 

returned 207 student records, which we reviewed and subsequently made 

the determination to exclude 49 records based on the employer name 

including one of these search terms but belonging to a business outside 

of the food service or retail industries. For example, we excluded an 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 36 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

employer that is a printing company with the word “café” in its name. 

From the sample of 158, we determined that 44 student records did not 

include additional employment information in the SEVIS employment 

comment or employment remark fields that explained how the job was 

related to the field of study and the records did not indicate a potentially 

related degree.

In addition to document and data collection and analysis, we interviewed 

SEVP officials to evaluate the extent to which their program has 

implemented controls related to OPT. We met with senior officials from 

SEVP, including SEVP’s Deputy Director, and management and staff for 

the five of seven branches involved in managing OPT—School 

Certification, Policy, Analysis and Operations Center, Field 

Representative Program, and Systems Management. We met with 

officials from CTCEU to understand the criminal enforcement perspective 

of managing and overseeing OPT. We interviewed USCIS officials to 

determine the extent to which USCIS has implemented processes for 

ensuring eligibility of students applying for employment authorization 

under OPT. In addition, we analyzed USCIS’s Computer-Linked 

Application Information Management System 3 (CLAIMS) data on OPT 

adjudication results from fiscal years 2008 to 2013.3

 3

CLAIMS 3 is a legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service case management system 

utilized by USCIS. CLAIMS 3 includes data and information on the status of foreign 

nationals’ applications for extensions of stay and a variety of immigration applications and 

petitions (e.g., to convert from a tourist to a student). CLAIMS 3 also maintains data on 

applications for work authorization.

To assess the 

reliability of the CLAIMS data on foreign student OPT adjudications, we 

interviewed agency officials responsible for managing the data about the 

data’s sources and the system’s controls. We found the data to be 

sufficiently reliable for providing descriptive information on the number of 

employment authorization applications and approvals for foreign students 

engaged in OPT. Furthermore, we interviewed 11 DSOs, and received a 

written response from 1 DSO, who are employed by schools in 

Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas on their roles and 

responsibilities related to foreign students seeking or authorized for OPT 

and on any challenges in the management and oversight of these foreign 

students. We selected these officials because, as of July 2013, they 

composed a group of representatives from SEVP-certified schools of 

various types and sizes in the Washington, D.C., region that meets 

regularly with SEVP to discuss matters such as SEVIS and SEVP policy 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 37 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

and requirements. As we did not select a probability sample of DSOs to 

interview, the information we obtained from these school officials cannot 

be generalized. The interviews provided us with the perspectives of DSOs 

responsible for overseeing students engaged in OPT. Further, we 

interviewed officials from NAFSA: Association of International Educators 

to discuss the organization’s views on OPT, including the involvement of 

DSOs in OPT.4

We conducted this performance audit from February 2013 to February

2014, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

 4

NAFSA was founded in 1948 as the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers to 

promote the professional development of U.S. college and university officials responsible 

for assisting and advising foreign students. NAFSA’s mission is to serve international 

educators, international student advisers, and DSOs and their institutions and 

organizations, by establishing principles of good practice, providing professional learning 

and development opportunities, providing networking opportunities, and advocating for 

international education. 
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 38 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 39 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

 
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 40 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

 
Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 41 GAO-14-356 Student and Exchange Visitor Program

 

Rebecca Gambler, (202) 512-8777 or gamblerr@gao.gov.

In addition to the contact named above, Kathryn Bernet, Assistant 

Director; Jennifer Bryant; Frances Cook; Lorraine Ettaro; Cynthia Grant; 

Kirsten Lauber; Elizabeth Luke; Lara Miklozek; Linda Miller; and Juan 

Tapia-Videla made significant contributions to this work.

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments

(441209)
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