Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand who thought it was a good idea to outsource the coding, engineering and maintenance of our most sensitive technology to foreigners on temporary visas. It makes all the govcon cybersecurity CMMA stuff a big joke. Ok, I'll make sure my admin's staff's computers are compliant if Microsoft and Amazon takes China and India out of their backend cloud computing architecture!
Follow the money trail is good strategy to figure this out or most decisions.
In 2007, Microsoft concocted a scheme to use OPT as a means to circumvent the H-1B quotas. Microsoft's plan was to extend the duration of OPT from a year to 29-months, so that the duration would be sufficient to serve as a guestworker program, rather than just an internship-type program. Microsoft proposed this scheme to the Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at a dinner party at the home of the owner of the Washington Nationals baseball team. (See pp. 229-230 in the book Sold Out.) From there, DHS worked in absolute secrecy with industry lobbyists to craft regulations implementing Microsoft's plan.
In a classic example of Washington cronyism, the first notice that DHS was even considering such regulations came when they were promulgated as a fait accompli, without notice and comment, on April 8, 2008 (73 Fed. Reg. 18,944). These regulations made three major expansions to OPT. First, they allowed aliens to remain in student visa status while they were unemployed so they could look for work. Second, they allowed aliens working under OPT to remain in student visa status from the time an H-1B petition was filed on their behalf until a final decision was made on the petition or the start date. This adds a maximum of 6 months to the OPT duration. Finally, they authorized a 17-month work period for aliens with degrees in fields DHS designates at Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics (STEM). This gave a maximum OPT duration of 35 months.
The OPT program has been the subject of continuous litigation since then where, after nearly a decade, the federal courts have been unable to come to a decision on whether it is lawful. However in 2015, the D.C. District Court held that the 2008 OPT regulations had been promulgated unlawfully without notice and comment. In response to this opinion, DHS promulgated new regulations that did the same as the old regulations except that they expanded the STEM work period from 17 months to 24 months, giving a maximum OPT work period of 42 months (24+12+6).
OPT is an example of the administrative state run amok. Instead of law coming from Congress, we have law coming from bureaucrats working hand-in-hand with lobbyists. OPT also illustrates the slippery-slope problem of regulation. Work on student visas started innocently as an integral part of a course of study to give foreign students an experience not available in their home country, but eventually was transformed into a full-blown guestworker program whose stated purpose is to provide labor to American business.
https://cis.org/Report/History-Optional-Practical-Training-Guestworker-Program