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US government probe into postdoc visas worries scientists
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Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, is under federal investigation for its employment of people holding J-1 visas.Credit: Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg/Getty
A US investigation into nine universities’ employment of international researchers is prompting concerns among academics at the campuses.
The investigation is focused on the universities’ use of J-1 visas, the main visa used by international postdoctoral researchers. The probe’s purpose is to reduce “visa fraud”, according to vice-president JD Vance.
“They’re using these visas way too much,” Vance said when announcing the investigation on 8 October. “They’re using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers, and it simply has to stop.”
Critics say that the rationale for the investigation is flawed, that international postdocs play a crucial part in US laboratories and that the announcement is deepening the sense of unease felt by international scientists.
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“For folks who are not US citizens, it’s pretty dire. It really makes people nervous,” says Theresa Desrochers, a neuroscientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, whose lab has hosted a number of visa-holding postdocs over the years. “It just contributes to an overall mood of ‘you’re not wanted here’.”
The US Department of Labor said it does not comment on active investigations.
The institutions under investigation are Harvard, Stanford, Arizona State, Yale and Brown universities; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the California Institute of Technology; the University of California, Davis; and the University of Pittsburgh.