USA · 13 May, 2026 · 2 min read
ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons Announces Nationwide OPT Fraud Crackdown With Over 10,000 Students Flagged
Over 10,000 foreign students flagged for suspected OPT fraud. Investigations linked to suspect employers, phantom employees, and shell companies.
How broadly the story is framed beyond the alleged schemes.
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Same story, two versions
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One headline-style framing emphasizes fraud in OPT; another links it to scale.
ICE targets OPT fraud
On May 12, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) held a press conference announcing what its leadership described as a coordinated, nationwide crackdown on fraud within the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program for F-1 students.
ICE said Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) identified more than 10,000 foreign students claiming employment with highly suspect employers, and that the figure came from only the top 25 OPT employers.
ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons framed OPT as a “magnet for fraud,” saying “OPT has become the magnet of fraud.”
ICE described site visits at OPT employer locations in Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Florida, with concentrated activity in North Texas where eighteen OPT work sites were visited in a single week.
Empty sites and clusters
ICE said investigators encountered empty buildings, locked doors, and residential addresses serving as listed work sites for hundreds of students.
The American Bazaar reported that Lyons said investigators found vacant offices and locked buildings at locations where hundreds of foreign students were said to be employed.T
ICE also described coordinated employer clusters in shared office complexes, where supposedly separate employers operated nearly identical websites and shared management personnel while disclaiming any business relationship with one another.
The PIE News said acting ICE director Todd Lyons told reporters that federal officials had uncovered evidence of “organised fraud that spans national and international borders,” adding, “This is not accidental. TIt is deliberate, coordinated and criminal.”
Consequences and scrutiny
ICE said the investigation included “phantom employees,” describing students who obtained Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) and were listed as working for a particular employer but had never reported to work. The Times of India reported that ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officials said they found “coordinated employer clusters” in North Texas after site visits to 18 OPT work sites.
The Times of India also quoted HSI Executive Associate Director John Connick saying, “We found shell company schemes where multiple OPT employers are established by the same owner operator,” while noting a case where a company in Texas claimed to employ only three OPT workers but records allegedly showed more than 500 foreign students connected to it. In parallel, the Reddy Neumann Brown PC compliance guide warned that ICE’s “bar for documented, defensible compliance has just risen,” and said the enforcement environment could produce “collateral consequences” for employers whose names appear in the same SEVIS records as a flagged entity.