Young Republicans of Texas are escalating their push against the Optional Practical Training program, urging President Donald Trump to rescind it outright as the administration signals openness to foreign labor in high-tech and manufacturing sectors.

In a post on November 19, the organization wrote, “OPT authorization is an uncapped foreign worker program masquerading as ‘practical training.’ It directly undermines American graduates and threatens our national security. President Trump can end it without Congress, and at our recent convention, we called on him to do so.”

Hours later, the group added in another post that “The training narrative falls apart when we consider that they’re keeping OPT wide open, giving a tax exemption to hire foreigners with the exact same training as Americans,” responding to the president’s recent defense of foreign labor needs in semiconductor manufacturing.

The group formalized its position in a resolution passed at its recent convention, arguing that OPT “allows an uncapped number of foreign students to continue working in the United States after college” and citing federal data claiming approximately 290,000 foreign nationals worked in the country under OPT and STEM OPT in 2024. The resolution states that individuals on OPT are exempt from FICA taxes, creating what the group describes as a hiring incentive for employers, and references a graduate employment survey reporting that only 30 percent of 2025 graduates found full-time jobs in their field.

The Young Republicans of Texas have increasingly urged restrictions on foreign labor pathways, previously conditioning national candidate endorsements on opposition to the H-1B visa program, as they wrote in a statement reported in September by The Dallas Express. Their latest call comes as President Trump alternates between criticizing and defending temporary worker programs, describing H-1B visas as essential in multiple interviews this autumn after years of pledging to scale back the system.

Trump said in recent remarks that foreign employers building major facilities in the US “are going to have to bring thousands of people with them,” arguing that domestic workers cannot immediately fill certain specialized roles. His comments came as the administration pushed a proposed rule that would shift the H-1B lottery to a wage-weighted system, a move the Department of Homeland Security claimed would prioritize highly paid applicants and reduce reported abuses.

The clash over OPT highlights a widening divide in the president’s political coalition. While federal regulators recently advanced measures that could make it costlier and more selective for employers to hire foreign professionals, business leaders have warned that restricting programs like OPT could constrict the talent pipeline for sectors such as artificial intelligence and semiconductor fabrication.

For students on F-1 visas, OPT operates alongside what the USCIS website describes as the “cap-gap” system, which extends eligibility for certain students with pending or approved H-1B petitions. The agency states that the extension is meant to “fill the cap-gap” between the end of F-1 status and the October start date for new H-1B employment, though students in the 60-day grace period are not authorized to work if their petition is filed after that point.