New Delhi: A final-year engineering student at a mid-tier university in the US thought he had landed the perfect job. The salary was competitive, the title legitimate and the Texas staffing company had sent a polished offer letter. However, something felt off.
The student, who hailed from India, cross-checked the employer in the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Employer Data Hub, only to find that the company had no history of filing H-1B petitions in the public record. The offer, he later realised, was fraudulent.
“What was significant was not the fraud itself. What was significant was that a 23-year-old student had developed the instinct to verify before accepting,” said Sanjay Laul, founder of MSM Unify. “That behavioural change is now standard practice within informed student networks.”
Graduating Indian students in the US are conducting comprehensive background checks on prospective employers, internship providers and staffing firms before accepting offers amid heightened scrutiny of the optional practical training (OPT) programme and growing concerns over immigration compliance, said study abroad consultants.
The circumspection comes in the wake of the US authorities busting a fraud network allegedly exploiting the OPT programme to arrange fake employment for more than 10,000 overseas students.
Filters On
Indian students in particular had reason to exercise increased caution, as they comprised 48.8% of the OPT participants in the US in the academic year 2024-25, according to the 2025 Open Doors report. The figure marked a 47.3% surge from the previous year, signalling their growing dependence on post-study work pathways in America as well as increasing stakes in immigration compliance and employer legitimacy. According to Laul, counselling queries about employer verification, visa compliance and long-term work eligibility have increased 20-25% over the past six to 12 months. Sponsorship history has now overtaken brand value as the primary filter for students while evaluating employers, according to Praneet Singh, vice president-university partnerships at upGrad Study Abroad.
“Students are cross-referencing the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub, focusing specifically on ‘new employment approvals’ that reveal whether a company genuinely sponsors first-time H-1B petitions rather than simply transferring existing visa holders,” he said.
Students are operating a “decentralised, peer-intelligence-led due diligence ecosystem”, he said, relying on Reddit, Fishbowl, Discord groups, WhatsApp cohorts and LinkedIn alumni tools to gather off-the-record feedback on immigration support, internship conversions and working conditions.
The nature of student enquiries has changed over the past 12-18 months, said Aditya Shanker Raghuwanshi, co-founder of Masterclass Space. Students are evaluating employers on parameters such as payroll transparency, tax documentation and whether companies have active employees and authentic online reviews. Many students, he said, are consciously avoiding smaller consulting firms and vague “bench-based” arrangements that could create future visa complications.
At a recent counselling session in Bengaluru, parents from schools teaching the International Baccalaureate curriculum not only asked about admissions or salaries but also sought detailed information on OPT risks, employer legitimacy and immigration compliance, said Raghuwanshi.
An IDP Education spokesperson said students are also becoming more proactive about planning employment timelines and preparing documentation for OPT applications well in advance, adding that university job fairs and career guidance cells are increasingly shaping employment decisions.
The alleged OPT abuse, however, largely exists within a distinct lower-tier ecosystem of some students, agents and institutions, according to Aman Singh, co-founder of GradRight.
