ICE Flags Over 10,000 Cases in International Student OPT Fraud
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement identified over 10,000 cases of foreign student visa fraud in the international student Optional Practical Training program. Former acting ICE director Jonathan Fahey discussed the crackdown on Fox & Friends First as the agency moved against fraud in the student job program.
ICE and Optional Practical Training
The case count is the clearest figure in the record: over 10,000 cases tied to the Optional Practical Training program, which the source describes as a student job program. ICE has linked the effort to fraud affecting foreign students, and the discussion has also been framed around implications for American workers.
Fahey's appearance put a former ICE chief at the center of the public explanation. His role matters because the debate is not just about a single enforcement action; it is about how the agency is characterizing the scale of the problem and the pressure it says that problem places on the program.
Jonathan Fahey on Fox & Friends First
Fahey, who served as acting ICE director, used Fox & Friends First to discuss ICE's crackdown. That is the only named public-facing discussion in the available facts, and it gives the enforcement move a direct political and operational audience.
The source does not add a list of enforcement steps, but it does establish the core concern: ICE says it has identified a large volume of fraud cases inside a program that helps foreign students work. That leaves workers, schools, and students watching for how aggressively the agency follows through.
Department of Justice Charges in Baltimore
A separate 2026 development in the same fact set came from the Department of Justice, which announced charges against Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair and Synergy Marine following the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, Maryland. The charges involved unsafe electrical system modifications.
That case sits apart from the ICE fraud crackdown, but it adds another example of federal enforcement moving against conduct tied to major public consequences. For readers tracking the broader government response, the next concrete marker in this file is not a new statement; it is whether ICE expands the fraud action beyond the over 10,000 cases already identified.
