Harvard University and 8 other elite institutions come under J-1 visa fraud investigation.
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. About 61% of postdoctoral researchers and federally funded workers at these institutions are foreign nationals.
“Something weird is going on at these universities,” said Vance. They’re using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers, and it simply has to stop,” Vance said. D’Esposito said the investigation against the nine elite universities is historic; subpoenas have been served.
It allows foreign nationals to work, study, train or teach in the US as part of a cultural and educational exchange. “They’re using these visas way too much. American taxpayers send billions of dollars to these universities to support research and innovation. They deserve to know where this money is going and whether it’s being used lawfully.