Free Republic

For thousands of Indians who move to the United States in pursuit of education, career growth, and stability, the American dream often represents more than just financial success — it stands for freedom, opportunity, and personal achievement. But as immigration rules tighten and job markets fluctuate, many find that this dream can unravel overnight. The story of one 32-year-old Indian worker, who spent four years building a life in the US only to face sudden job loss and visa uncertainty, reveals how fragile this dream can be. The worker, who moved to the US in 2021 on an F1 student...

The 'American Dream' is often described as the belief that anyone can succeed in the United States through perseverance and hard work. For Ananya Joshi, an Indian woman, that promise fell short. She bid a teary-eyed farewell to the country after failing to secure stable employment. In a conversation with NDTV, Joshi explained that she was on an F-1 visa when she was laid off. She had joined a company during her Optional Practical Training (OPT) period, but they later informed her that they would not sponsor her visa. "At that time I did not panic because I knew I...

The Trump administration has stepped up unannounced inspections targeting foreign students in the United States under the Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme, with a sharp focus on those in the two-year STEM OPT extension. Officials have even been visiting student residences and university housing facilities for verification, according to immigration attorneys, as reported by Lubna Kably in The Times of India. The Open Doors report for 2023-24 shows that 3.3 lakh Indian students were in the US, with nearly 97,556 enrolled in the OPT programme, many in STEM-OPT. This makes them one of the largest groups affected by the checks....

A California man was charged Monday with operating a ring of illegal test-takers who helped dozens of Middle Eastern nationals obtain U.S. student visas by passing proficiency and college-placement exams for them. Eamonn Daniel Higgins, 46, of Laguna Niguel made an appearance in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana on one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud as immigration agents arrested 16 of his suspected clients who remained in Southern California... The allegations revealed a potentially dangerous security breach in the country's student visa system and underscored the vulnerability of a tracking process that relies on schools to verify...

WASHINGTON – Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that one of the Columbia students who had her student visa revoked for advocating for violence and terrorism self-deported using the CBP Home App and ICE arrested a Palestinian student for overstaying her expired F-1 visa. Ranjani Srinivasan, a citizen and national of India, entered the United States on a F-1 student visa as doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University. Srinivasan was involved in activities supporting Hammas, a terrorist organization. On March 5, 2025, the Department of State revoked her visa. The Department of Homeland Security has obtained...

The Justice Department announced today that it reached a settlement agreement with ASTA CRS Inc., a provider of IT staffing and consulting services with offices in Ashburn, Virginia, and Greenbelt, Maryland. This is the ninth settlement under the Civil Rights Division’s Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, which is aimed at targeting, investigating, and taking enforcement actions against companies that discriminate against U.S. workers in favor of temporary visa workers.The settlement resolves a claim that ASTA’s Maryland office discriminated against U.S. workers because of their citizenship status when it posted a job advertisement specifying a preference for non-U.S. citizens who held...

For years, the Department of Homeland Security has operated a fake university in the Detroit suburbs as part of an undercover operation that lured undocumented immigrants seeking to obtain fraudulent student visas. Now, eight people from around the country have been indicted for “conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harboring aliens for profit,” as part of an elaborate scheme to aid as many as 600 foreign nationals in remaining in the United States illegally. “We are all aware that international students can be a valuable asset to our country, but as this case shows, the well-intended international student visa program...

Foreign nationals attempting to enter the United States through various visa programs will now have to prove they have the means return to their native countries as federal law mandates. As part of President Donald Trump’s Buy American, Hire American Executive Order, the vetting procedures conducted by the State Department of foreign nationals trying to come to the U.S. have been strengthened to weed out not only radicalized individuals, but also foreigners with no documented intentions on departing. The National Law Review outlined the changes by the Trump Administration, writing that “the revisions appear to instruct officers to apply a...

America has an alphabet soup of visa programs for foreigners to choose from: B-1 for business visitors, B-2 for tourists, EB-5 for investors, F-1 for students, and so on. All are overwhelmed, loosely monitored and riddled with fraud and corruption. According to the recently unsealed federal indictment against him, sleazy Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., took it upon himself to add his own very special, crooked path to the U.S. Call it the 36DD Visa. The New York Post recounted this weekend how Menendez and his staff pressured the State Department to expedite the foreign tourist and student visa approval processes...

The US government is poised to propose rules that could restrict the ability of Chinese and other foreign nationals to engage in high-level research in the country, a plan that is generating fierce opposition from companies and universities. The move comes amid growing fears in the US that its relatively open rules allowing foreign nationals to work with sensitive technologies leave the country open to espionage.