Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Task Force for the opportunity to speak to you today.
Abuse of our immigration system is widespread. Criticism often focuses on fraud, and there is certainly plenty of that. There has been recent coverage of fraud in VAWA self-petitions, staged crimes to qualify for a U visa, OPT worksites with no workers, and “industrialized” H-1B fraud. That’s the tip of the iceberg.
There are steps Congress can take to help fight fraud, but when something this valuable is on offer – residence in the United States – there will always be some who seek to break the rules to get it.
More concerning, and more amenable to congressional action, are instances when the executive branch itself is engaging in abuse of the immigration system.
Responses from Mark Krikorian to follow-up questions from Rep. Eli Crane pursuant to the June 9, 2026, hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses, titled “Amnesty and Chaos: Abuse of U.S. Immigration Policy”:
- According to FOX News, a recent investigation in India uncovered a network of universities that sold as many as 100,000 fake degrees for as little as $1,400 each.
Does the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security currently have adequate tools to identify H-1B applicants who submit fraudulent educational credentials?
- Inadequate Tooling & Systemic Vulnerabilities: Neither the Department of State nor the Department of Homeland Security possesses adequate, automated, or integrated tools to systematically detect sophisticated document fraud at this scale. The system remains highly reliant on manual verification.
- Resourcing and Training Gaps: While Fraud Prevention Units (FPUs) exist at every U.S. embassy and consulate, they are severely understaffed and lack the specialized training required to counter the overwhelming volume and sophistication of modern credential mills.
- Geopolitical and Volume Pressures: Consular sections operate under immense, conflicting pressures. There is sustained, high-level diplomatic pressure from host-country governments to accelerate visa issuance, which directly collides with the reality of limited personnel attempting to perform rigorous fraud oversight.
If such tools exist, how effective are they, and if they do not, what reforms are necessary?
To establish a meaningful deterrent and protect the integrity of the H-1B program, the following structural reforms are necessary:
- Immediate Operational Pause: Implement an immediate, temporary pause on H-1B visa issuances from heavily impacted regions until a comprehensive, top-to-bottom fraud and security review is conducted.
- Mandatory Exclusion and Bars: Implement strict, mandatory statutory bars to admissibility for any applicant found submitting fraudulent academic or professional documents to serve as a severe personal deterrent.
- Institutional Blacklisting: Establish a centralized, cross-agency blacklist of compromised, unaccredited universities, credential mills, and complicit third-party agencies. Any applicant utilizing these entities should face an immediate administrative freeze.
- FPU Resource Scaling: Mandate targeted congressional funding to scale FPU personnel and deploy advanced digital verification technologies directly at high-volume processing posts.
- The Optional Practical Training program allows foreign students to remain in the United States and work after graduation.
Has Congress ever explicitly authorized the OPT program?
No, it has not. See here for a history of the program: https://cis.org/Report/History-Optional-Practical-Training-Guestworker-Program.
How does OPT function as a pipeline into the H-1B system?
OPT serves as a bridge between the completion of a foreign student’s studies (at which point he ceases to actually be a student) and his receipt of an H-1B visa. OPT used in this way serves to circumvent the numerical limits Congress has imposed on the annual issuance of H-1B visas, because a firm can hire an alien as OPT while it petitions for an H-1B visa for him.
Does OPT allow employers to access foreign labor while avoiding some of the costs and restrictions associated with the H-1B program?
Yes. Since OPT has no numerical limits or labor-market tests, some employers use OPT not as a bridge to H-1B but as an alternative, as a free-standing foreign-worker program of its own, especially since STEM-OPT can last for up to three years. What’s more, because OPTs are masquerading as students (with the government’s complicity), neither they nor their employers pay Social Security, Medicare, or unemployment taxes, a cost-savings that serves as a powerful incentive for employers to prefer young foreign graduates over young American graduates.
Many TPS designations and other temporary immigration programs have existed for years or even decades beyond their original purpose. If Congress and successive administrations continue extending temporary protections indefinitely, are we effectively creating a permanent immigration status without congressional authorization, and what effect does that have on public confidence in our immigration system?
The repeated renewal of TPS, often for decades, has created de facto permanent status not simply without congressional authorization, but directly contrary to Congress’s explicit statutory requirements. Such temporary-but-really-permanent arrangements are yet another example of the disconnect between the ostensible terms of immigration law and the reality, similar to “pierceable caps”, “dual intent”, and “particular social group”. This Orwellian language undermines public confidence in the immigration system and emboldens aliens, businesses, immigration lawyers and others in their relentless efforts at gaming the system.