Texas Senator Ted Cruz and dozens of other Republicans have backed tech workers who want the Supreme Court to scrap a visa regime that leaves some 200,000 foreigners competing against them for US jobs.
Cruz is one of five senators and 31 congressmen who have filed papers in support of the case, which lawyers for the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (Washtech) say is strong support.
In their briefing, they say the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allows tens of thousands of foreign students to stay in the US for years after their course has ended, to compete with US citizens and lower wages.
“President Biden’s DHS is circumventing the law Congress made on non-immigration visas, and it’s harming American workers,” Cruz said.
“This is a broken visa program that needs to be fixed.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz and dozens of other Republicans have submitted documents in support of the Supreme Court’s request
The number of OPT participants has soared to more than 200,000 in recent years, though numbers fell during the pandemic, according to the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors report
Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Mike Braun of Indiana and Katie Britt of Alabama also signed the papers, which were filed by America First Legal, a campaign group led by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
In those files, the senators refer to research showing how Disney, AT&T, Walmart and other major US companies have used the plan to “use low-wage foreigners to displace American workers.”
Washtech’s attorney, John Miano, says the case has received “unusual interest.”
Washtech wants the court to tear up an Obama-era extension to the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program that allows foreign student visa holders to work in the US for a year after graduation.
Defenders of the DHS program say it allows migrants to gain hands-on experience in their field while US tech companies bring in fresh talent. Without it, they would just study in a more hospitable country, they say.
The case highlights two major concerns of conservatives: that Americans are losing jobs to foreigners and that federal government agencies are overstepping their powers by creating rules to be passed by Congress.
Washtech attorney John Miano, of the conservative Immigration Reform Law Institute, said the “case has attracted an unusual amount of interest” from some of America’s best-known politicians.
This visa program “deprives Congress of the power to set conditions for non-immigrant visas,” and therefore “naturally caught the attention of members of Congress,” Miano told DailyMail.com.
Miano says DHS officials agreed to expand the plan over a private dinner with tech sector representatives as other foreign worker programs, such as the H-1B, were capped.
Migrants studying at U.S. colleges are allowed to work for a limited time after graduation. They are especially popular in the technical sector. Pictured: New foreign students enrolled at Penn State University
Washtech, a union of some 300 West Coast technicians, filed an appeal with the Supreme Court last month after a lower court rejected its earlier request in February.
The US Supreme Court is expected to decide within weeks whether to hear the case.
The court hears only about 5 percent of the thousands of cases reviewed each year.
The case is being judged by one of the most conservative court configurations in generations, and comes amid a wave of layoffs from Meta, Microsoft and many other major US tech companies.
The OPT has existed in one form or another since 1947.
Washtech challenged it after it was modified by the Obama administration in 2016, allowing science, technology, engineering and math students to get work permits for up to two years beyond the typical one-year period.
The original lawsuit argues that federal immigration law only allows international students to stay in the US while they are in school.
David North, a fellow of the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank, says it encourages hiring of migrants because an OPT tax break makes them about 8 percent cheaper than American workers.
Migrants with a science and engineering background can work in the US for three years after graduation
The union is taking on DHS, which oversees the OPT program. The department did not respond to our request for comment.
Major business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, have stepped in to defend the OPT scheme.
They say it helps companies address a shortage of qualified American workers.
Wolfsdorf Rosenthal, an immigration law firm, says the OPT scheme gives foreigners studying in the US some time to find an employer when they would otherwise have to leave.
“If we don’t keep international students in the US after they graduate, they will take their skills elsewhere and work for our competitors,” the company said in a statement.
The US would then lose to Australia, Canada, China and India, which have postgraduate work programs, she added.
The number of OPT participants has risen from about 30,000 in the early 2000s to more than 200,000 in recent years, though numbers declined during the pandemic, according to the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors report.