US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has identified nearly 10,000 foreign students, including several Indians, for allegedly misusing the Optional Practical Training (OPT) programme, with officials claiming the student visa component has become a major source of fraud and national security concerns.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said the OPT component of the student visa programme has “become a magnet for fraud” and has been under multiple investigations by the Department of Homeland Security.

OPT allows foreign nationals studying in the United States on student visas to work in the country for 12 months, or up to 24 months in certain cases. The programme also enables students to transition to employer-sponsored H-1B visas.

“We've encountered cases involving espionage, biological threats, intellectual property theft, visa and employment fraud, and even scams targeting elderly Americans, all perpetrated by individuals abusing their status as students,” Lyons said.

“Our nation will not tolerate security threats originating from the foreign student programme,” he added.

Lyons and other federal officials said investigators carried out site visits and uncovered several irregularities, including cases in which OPT beneficiaries were allegedly being “managed” by employees based in India. Officials said this violated programme rules that require training and supervision to be conducted from within the United States.

Criticising the expansion of the programme, Lyons said the OPT system, introduced during the George W Bush administration, was originally intended for only a limited number of foreign students seeking temporary training before returning to their home countries.

“Instead, OPT ballooned into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline with hundreds of thousands of foreign students working in the United States. As the programme's size has exploded, so has the fraud,” he said.

Lyons described the alleged misuse of OPT as “a blatant attack on the goodwill of the American people, who generously allow foreign nationals access to their education system.”