A US court has approved the settlement of the fact that sanctions on more than 90 foreign nationals, among them Indians, are going to be lifted.
The US district court has sanctioned an agreement that will lift the sanctions on more than 90 foreign nationals, most of whom are from India. Previously, they were banned from going back to the US or refused to have a visa because of the OPT fraud that their ex-employers had committed.
These students, who were the ones that were cheated by OPT fraudsters, suffered severe consequences, such as being denied entrance to the US or being ineligible for visas. One student from Chennai said that he went on a very short trip, but when he went to US customs officials, they refused to let him in because he had for a short time worked for a company that was on the blacklist.
Attorney Jesse Bless, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said that after the talks, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) admitted to checking its files. It established that these former students are not avoidable in the US or inadmissible for visas just because they worked with fake OPT companies. “After the inadmissibility issue is gone, these plaintiffs have a chance to live and work in the United States,” Bless said.
OPT bears the feature of allowing foreign students to gain work experience in the US, with the option of a two-year extension for STEM students. Out of the Indian students who were in the US during 2022–23, 69,000 were in OPT, according to the Open Doors Report.
The criminally induced scheme involved companies authenticated by the DHS through the E-Verify program, as was explained to the Times of India by the attorney Jonathan Wasden. They strongly marketed consulting jobs to the new graduates by conducting interviews and offering employment for the under-the-radar training programs, frequently priced at $500 or less.
