Student Visa Fraud: 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
— Scott Mechkowski (@ScottMechkowski) September 7, 2026
There's a job title almost no American has heard of, and for 23 years it's been running our foreign student system.
It's called a DSO. Designated School Official.
When a foreign student wants to study here, they need a form called an I-20 to…
There's a job title almost no American has heard of, and for 23 years it's been running our foreign student system.
It's called a DSO. Designated School Official.
When a foreign student wants to study here, they need a form called an I-20 to get his visa. The government doesn't issue that form. The school does.
And the school picks one of its own employees to be the DSO. That employee is the one who's supposed to notify the government when the student stops showing up to class, drops below a full course load, or just disappears.
So the school hands out the ticket. The school is also the only one who can blow the whistle on the guy holding it. And every time it blows that whistle, it loses a tuition check.
I'm not calling these people crooks. Over 24 years I dealt with plenty of school officials who took the job seriously and did it right. Most of them do, But you cannot run an enforcement system that only works when the people inside it are willing to cost themselves money.
And nobody was checking their work. In 2012, the GAO pulled 48 school files at random. Thirty were missing required paperwork. ICE couldn't produce two of them at all. Seven years later GAO came back and found ICE sitting on 3,281 school recertification applications, when the law says every school gets reviewed every two years.
Here's the part nobodyever talked about.
Until now, a foreign student's entry record had no expiration date on it. It said "duration of status." they could stay as long as he was enrolled. And who decided whether he was enrolled? The school. There was no date to run out. The clock sat in the registrar's office, THAT WAS NOT A TYPO.
That ends next Monday. Starting September 15, students get an actual date. When it passes, they're out of status. No school official required. No government finding required.
And if you read the fine print DHS published with the rule, they cite the GAO's own findings about the risk of leaning on school owners and school officials to police their own students.
23years on the honor system. It took until next Monday to put a date on it.
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