US Lawmakers Race to Protect OPT Program For Foreign Students

US lawmakers have introduced legislation to permanently protect Optional Practical Training, the programme that allows international graduates on F-1 student visas to gain up to three years of US work experience after completing their degrees — a direct pushback against the Trump administration's plan to eliminate or severely curtail the programme through executive regulation.

Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jay Obernolte and Indian American Raja Krishnamoorthi unveiled the Keep Innovators in America Act to codify the Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme into law, providing long-term certainty for students.

The bill comes at a critical moment. The Department of Homeland Security has officially listed an OPT overhaul on its regulatory agenda, with the stated goal of "protecting US workers from displacement by foreign nationals." USCIS Director Joseph Edlow has separately stated his intent to "eliminate employment authorisations for F-1 students once they are no longer enrolled."

The stakes could not be higher for Indian students, who represent the largest single nationality using OPT and STEM OPT extensions. With green card backlogs stretching decades for Indian nationals and H-1B lotteries increasingly uncertain, OPT is often the only legal bridge keeping skilled graduates employed in the United States.

Currently, over 242,000 international students use OPT annually to work in fields directly related to their studies. The Democratic bill seeks to codify OPT protections into federal statute, permanently removing it from executive regulatory reach and ending the uncertainty that has left hundreds of thousands of students and employers in limbo.