This episode of the BAL Immigration Report is brought to you by BAL, the corporate immigration law firm that powers human achievement through immigration expertise, people-centered client services and innovative technology. Learn more at BAL.com.
In this week’s episode, BAL’s Stacey Scorza assembles a panel of designated school officials and an executive in employer relations from Southern Methodist University (SMU) to discuss F-1 visa challenges and STEM OPT issues facing international students and employers.
From Dallas, Texas, I’m Rebecca Sanabria.
The F-1 visa, also known as the student visa, was introduced in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, enabling foreign nationals to temporarily live in the U.S. while pursuing a course of study or degree at an accredited college or university.
Upon graduation, students with degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, also known as STEM, are eligible for Optional Practical Training, or OPT, for up to 36 additional months, after which they must find employer sponsorship to continue working in the United States.
BAL Senior Associate Stacey Scorza from the Dallas office assembled the following panel from SMU to discuss the challenges facing employers and international students with F-1 visas and STEM OPT status: Lauren Searway, Assistant Director of Employer Relations, and International Program Specialists and Designated School Officials Angie Garcia and Ginger Gonzalez.
[The following transcript has been slightly edited from the original audio for clarity.]
Scorza: Lauren, Ginger, Angie, I’m not sure if you share international student meetings from time to time, but I searched online in advance of our discussion today, and some really resonated with me from my times when I was studying abroad at the University of Bourgogne in France.
For example, some of the struggles international students at American colleges and universities face include things like converting everything from American dollars to your home currency, feeling abysmally poor or dangerously rich, depending on where you’re from.
You know, I can say for myself, being in France at the time where they were still using francs and changing over to euros, it was quite an experience trying to figure all that out all the time, every time I went to the store. But I don’t know for you guys, is there anything that’s resonated with you?
Gonzalez: I think about when students first arrive here in the United States and they start going through that culture shock and they’re wondering, “Where can I find grocery stores where I can buy food that is comforting to me.” That’s something that we try to provide. We do a lot of research based on the different cultural cuisines and grocery stores that are available around SMU so that students do have some semblance of normalcy when they arrive here at SMU.
Scorza: That’s really great because I do think that we’re lucky to be here in Dallas, that there’s a lot of opportunities like that — lots of different restaurants and different stores from different cultures that make it a little easy. I will say for me, I still remember my first Thanksgiving when I was living in England. It was quite interesting the way they prepare stuffing as compared to the United States. But they tried, so it was good.
What about you, Lauren and Angie? Anything that you notice?
Searway: This is Lauren. So many potential employers seem to be allergic to the words “visa” and “sponsorship.” I think that rings true sometimes.
Scorza: I definitely hear that. How about you, Angie?
Garcia: What comes to mind is how students often come with this intense pressure that their domestic peers might not carry; pressure related to maintaining status, understanding the impact of their decisions when it comes to remaining compliant with their F-1 visa regulations.
Scorza: I hear that. The fear that comes through with the letters O, P and T definitely is a real thing.
I’m really excited to have you all here to discuss some of the current F-1 visa challenges from both the student and employer point of view. And as we said, I’m here with Lauren Searway, Assistant Director of Employer Relations at Southern Methodist University. Lauren, tell us a little bit about what you do.
Searway: Thank you so much for having me, Stacey. As you mentioned, I work on the employer relations team, and that’s within our all majors career center on campus. I primarily work with recruiters and other employer partners to get them connected to campus so that hopefully they can hire some of our students for either full-time positions or internships.
We handle the career fair, which is kind of one of the main events that we’re known for, but there’s so many other touch points that we do. We find those employers that come to campus often have some of the best success with recruitment. That’s a little bit about what I do in the career center.
Scorza: Thanks, Lauren. We also have here Ginger Gonzalez and Angie Garcia, both international program specialists and designated school officials at SMU. It sounds like a loaded title. Tell us a bit about what your day-to-day roles entail. Ginger, do you want to kick us off?
Gonzalez: Basically, our jobs are to support the students to maintain their F-1 status and remain legal here in the United States. That support comes with answering lots of emails, helping them navigate the American academic climate here. We do activities to give them information about how to obtain a driver’s license and how to obtain a Social Security number. And then know the differences between what goes on in an American classroom versus what they’re used to back in their home country.
There’s the legal aspect of it. Then there’s also the cultural knowledge aspect that we do on a daily basis.
Scorza: You must feel a little bit like a surrogate parent trying to help these students while they’re here.
Gonzalez: It feels like that sometimes.
Scorza: How about you, Angie? Anything you want to add to that?
Garcia: Ginger really hit the nail on the head. Yes, it can feel a little bit like we’re a surrogate parent, but it’s a role that we’re happy to take on. This position requires a lot of empathy and understanding for where our students are at, coming to sometimes the United States for the first time ever. It’s a great responsibility, but one that we’re both grateful to have.
Scorza: That’s great. That’s really wonderful to hear. Students definitely count on the help their DSOs give them through all aspects of the change and the adjustments and just what they go through while they’re here.
Why don’t you tell me a little bit about some of the challenges that students are dealing with currently with the government?
Garcia: Angie here, and I’m happy to take that question. As DSOs, our primary role, like we’ve mentioned, is to help international students maintain their nonimmigrant status. We act as liaisons between the university, the government and our international student population.
What many students and employers don’t realize is that we face several challenges working across multiple agencies, such as the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, and even the Social Security Administration, the SSA. These challenges often stem from miscommunication, delays or conflicting policies even between these agencies. And these agencies are just to name a few.
As DSOs, we frequently find ourselves working independently with limited support from our overseeing government agency, the Department of Homeland Security. While there is a help desk that is available for DSOs to access, they really can’t do much when the issue involves another government agency.
This lack of communication and clear assistance from these agencies makes it difficult for us to support our students effectively, and when our hands are tied waiting on government action, students are depending on us to resolve their issues and it can feel like a helpless situation.
Scorza: That’s really, really hard to tackle.
Garcia: Yes.
Scorza: Definitely, as the students, they come to you and they want you to just help them just fix it because there’s no one else that they know that they can turn to.
What are some of the recent trends you’ve been seeing from the government that are causing some difficulties for the students? I’ve heard there are some USCIS errors that have been leading to some dire circumstances for some individuals and just hassle for others. Ginger, tell us a little bit about what you’ve been seeing in that respect.
Gonzalez: We’re seeing a delay in the production of EAD cards and errors in the EAD cards. If there is a mistake in the EAD card, then it requires the student to send their EAD card back to USCIS before they will send them a corrected EAD card. If a student is in this situation, even though they’ve been approved for OPT, they cannot start working until they have the correct EAD card in their possession. This can cause a potential lost opportunity for employment, which is very frustrating for the student.
We had a student today receive an EAD card, and his gender was wrong. It was marked female when he is obviously a male. Now, we have to go through that process of helping him get a replacement EAD card.
We learned that one reason these EAD cards are delayed is because there’s only one facility in the United States that processes all of the EAD cards for all work authorization. That could be for Temporary Protected Status. That could be for people applying for permanent residency and then the students on OPT. All of them are generated out of one facility. That is also a reason why things are delayed.
Scorza: In those instances, have employers been sympathetic or able to hold jobs while these things get fixed, or have students been losing some of these job opportunities?
Garcia: This is Angie. We’ve seen mixed results in these cases. It could be that an employer really wants this student, and they’ve been selected as the top candidate for that position, and they’re willing to empathize and be patient while we wait for the EAD card or while the student waits for the EAD card. Then we’ve seen in other cases that, unfortunately, the employer decides to move on. I believe it comes from the position of not knowing even when to expect that EAD card.
Ginger and I learned that the I-765 applications that are submitted are processed manually. When a student is looking at their case status, it could be because of a simple mistake and forgetting to click a button. They wouldn’t be aware of when to expect or where their EAD card is in the process. It could say that there is a four-month process and the card arrives the next week.
That insecurity and where the student stands in the process, I think it’s really difficult for employers to justify waiting on the EAD card.
Scorza: I think that’s a real valid point. USCIS, in addition, only has certain dropdowns in the background. If somebody is checking their online case status to see where they’re at, hoping to track things, just waiting for it to say a card being produced or a card has been shipped, sometimes they can’t or they don’t update that. So even though everything is moving smoothly in the background and it’s going to happen soon, nobody knows, just like you say.
What have students been doing in these situations or what have you been seeing them do in these situations just to make sure they can maintain their F-1 status?
Gonzalez: This is Ginger. Some students get really creative with stopping their unemployment clock. They receive 90 days of unemployment throughout that first year of OPT. With this job market now, we’re seeing a lot of students asking us how to participate in volunteer opportunities.
Angie and I have to really educate them on what true volunteering is based on the definition defined by the Department of Labor. We try to make them understand that they need to be aware that they are not being exploited and that it is a true volunteer opportunity.
Internships are also being considered. Students can be employed or stop that unemployment clock by doing a short-term internship, paid or unpaid. And that is one thing that we’ve seen an increase in.
Another thing that we’ve been seeing is students are now just opting to forego their OPT and go and return home to pursue their career at home or in a third country if they can get a work permit.
Scorza: That’s interesting. Oftentimes, they come here and they spend so much time studying and investing in friendships. Maybe they have a partner here and it’s hard for them to do that. But there are times where it does make sense and there really is no other option if they want to make sure they don’t stay here unlawfully.
But I think this is a good point to kind of segue over into a discussion with you, Lauren, about employers and how they can often feel there’s an iron curtain with respect to the process of hiring international students. Lauren, why don’t you tell me a bit about what you see as some of the biggest challenges institutionally for the university with respect to international student employment opportunities?
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