Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State, and MIT are under investigation for alleged visa fraud, Vice President JD Vance announced, suggesting that these universities are exploiting the J-1 visa program to import cheaper students from overseas as an exchange program but only to evade higher payment to Americans. Unlike F-1 visa which is entirely student’s visa, J-1 visa is meant for exchange students. It allows foreign nationals to work, study, train or teach in the US as part of a cultural and educational exchange. “Something weird is going on at these universities,” said Vance. “They’re using these visas way too much. They’re using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers, and it simply has to stop,” Vance said.“Nobody will be getting a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building,” said Labor Department watchdog Anthony D’Esposito, who reported that 61% of post-grad students at US universities come from overseas.“American taxpayers send billions of dollars to these universities to support research and innovation. They deserve to know where that money … is going, and whether it’s being used lawfully.”
Not India but China is the target
Unlike H-1B, which always has its target on India, J-1 is allegedly being misused by China. D’Esposito said there are concerns that countries like China are taking advantage of the visa program to spy on American research and innovation. “The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t need to kick down the doors of America’s research laboratories if our own institutions are willing to leave the doors wide open,” he said.“If an American university is breaking the law to save $1 while exposing American research to a foreign adversary, that is not academic excellence. It’s institutional betrayal,” D’Esposito said.
