Backup: the OPT program is a little-known America Last immigration program administered by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service that incentivizes greedy employers to fire American workers and replace them with inexpensive foreign labor because they avoid having to pay FICA and Medicare payroll taxes and other employee benefits. According to NumbersUSA, by not paying FICA or Medicare taxes, employers save roughly eight percent when they hire foreigners. Additionally, there are no enforceable wage protections, allowing employers to undercut local prevailing wages by hiring foreign workers.
How was the OPT program created, you ask? Congress never voted to create the OPT program. Instead, as is too often the case in the Swamp, Big Tech billionaires hired lobbyists to sell out our own graduates, many deeply in debt with student loans, and lobbied George W. Bush to create this America Last program. The idea was to extend the length of existing “practical training” regulations so they could function as a new guest worker program that allows employers to circumvent the H-1B visa cap set by Congress and permit over 100,000 aliens admitted into our country on student visas to continue working in the United States for another three years after completing their academic studies.
The lobbyists chirped, and no doubt made a few hefty campaign donations, and just like that, the Bush administration created the current OPT program by executive order and the Obama administration expanded it further. Not surprisingly, more and more employers are taking advantage of the government discount on not hiring Americans.In fact, use of the program grew by 400% between 2008 and 2016. Over 500,000 foreign students were authorized to work in the practical training program in 2023.
The OPT program completely abandons young Americans, particularly those who have spent years and tens of thousands of dollars pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics only to be pushed out of those fields by cheap foreigners. Our government should not be incentivizing foreign employees over Americans. This badly flawed government program should be eliminated.
What’s New with Social Security?
The Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been taking a close look at the waste, fraud and abuse, that is harming Social Security, and the findings are alarming.
For example, DOGE has found that Social Security’s database included tens of thousands of beneficiaries aged over 120 years, meaning it is more than likely that relatives of dead people have been receiving and cashing Social Security checks.
In addition, DOGE reported that a significant portion of calls to Social Security call centers were from fraudsters attempting to steal benefits by redirecting direct deposits. This led to recommendations for enhanced security measures, such as two-factor authentication and in-person visits for certain account changes. Our seniors are constantly being preyed upon by criminals.
DOGE also found that over $100 billion in entitlement payments were made annually without proper identification numbers, labeling approximately $50 billion as “unequivocal and obvious fraud.” That’s real money harming the entire Social Security system. Next time you hear a Democrat claiming that requiring proof of identification is racist keep in mind this $50 billion in social security fraud all because of the lack of ID.
To stop these fraudulent claims, the Social Security Administration, under DOGE’s guidance, introduced a policy requiring in-person identity verification for new and existing recipients. This move aimed to ensure that benefits are distributed to legitimate beneficiaries. It’s amazing that 90 years after this program was started it took getting President Trump elected to require basic identification.
You may recall back in July 2021, I filed the No Tax on Social Security Act. My bill would modify current tax policies by excluding Social Security benefits from being subject to taxation. At the time, I noted that the decision by Congress to tax Social Security benefits in 1983 had been a public policy disaster from the beginning. Not only has it deprived America’s senior citizens of benefits that they rightfully earned after a lifetime of hard work and paying into Social Security, but its failure to account for inflation means senior citizens are subject to an annual tax hike.
The good news is that President Trump agrees with me. Earlier this year, President Trump asked Republicans in Congress to make good on his campaign promise that mirrors my legislation to eliminate taxes on Social Security. Congress included this and any many other provisions to lower taxes in what is called a budget reconciliation bill. Both the House and Senate are eyeing the week of April 7 to finish work on the budget reconciliation bill and I will be sure to keep you updated.
The point is this: between my efforts, and the efforts of President Trump and Republicans in Congress, Social Security is going to get improvements, which will help all of us.
Trump Issues Executive Order Requiring Proof of Citizenship in Federal Elections
President Trump took a series of executive actions this week to restore trust in our elections. To protect the integrity of American elections, Trump’s executive order requires citizenship verification and bans foreign nationals from interfering in U.S. elections. As they are prone to always do, Democrats promptly labeled the new policy as a racist. However, voters deserve elections they can trust, and that confidence is being restored thanks to President Trump.
I find it both laughable and preposterous that the same people who, for the past four years, forced you to carry a vaccine passport to dine in a restaurant, hold a job or get on a flight are the same people now opposing common-sense legislation requiring individuals to show proof of American citizenship to vote in elections.
It’s not racist, it’s common sense: prove your citizenship, or you can’t vote. In fact, an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with me. A recent poll conducted by Pew shows that 90% of Americans say it is very or somewhat important to stop non-citizens from voting. The fact is, with 13 million illegal aliens welcomed into our country by Joe Biden, voters are right to be concerned about the integrity of elections. President Trump’s executive order and the legislation being considered in Congress are crucial steps toward ensuring our elections are fair and honest.
It’s Mail Time!
📬I received more than a few letters this week from people expressing their views regarding reports about the leaking of several text messages sent between Trump Administration officials. Here is one such letter:
📨 Michelle G. from Glendale, AZ wrote:
I am HORRIFIED that top Cabinet officials were caught using a commercial messaging app to discuss secret war plans for Yemen this week. Shockingly, they accidentally included a journalist in the group chat. This alarming breach of national security not only highlights the gross incompetence of the Trump administration, but also underscores the growing disregard for the chain of command, oversight, and the rule of law. It also represents a huge risk to our national security as well as to all those who serve in our military. It’s terrifying, infuriating, and unacceptable. This level of carelessness is unthinkable.
✍ Michelle, you write that the level of carelessness is unthinkable. You cannot be serious? Have you forgotten about the disregard for the chain of command when General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretly contacted his counterpart in communist China, to pre-warn him that President Trump was supposedly going to trigger a war with China?
Or how about the time that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her private email server to transmit classified State Department information?
Have you forgotten about the 51 intelligence officers who fraudulently claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was part of the Russian disinformation effort?
Were you equally “horrified” when Biden’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, disappeared for days without telling anyone while wars raged in the Middle East and Ukraine and tensions continued between the United States and China over Taiwan?
Or how about the past four years the left and Fake News lied about Joe Biden’s “diminished state of mental health” all while his fingers were on the nuke button? Respectfully, I will not be lectured by you or anyone else on the left about the “rule of law” when Joe Biden allowed and welcomed 13 million lawbreakers, including thousands of violent criminals, rapists, murders and terrorists, into our country by ignoring the laws on the books.
Oh wait, I just went back and checked, and not once have I previously received a letter or phone call from you expressing “horror” about those far more serious and actual national security breaches and concerns about the rule of law. Why do you and Democrats suddenly care? Why start now?
I will address a few of the Democrats’ claims about this supposed breach of operational security. First, were the strikes on Houthi forces compromised by this group chat? No. They were successfully executed. Second, is the Signal app secure? Yes. In fact, the Biden Administration’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) named Signal as a suitable platform for “secure communications” under its “Mobile Communications Best Practice Guidance.” Furthermore, the chat did not get hacked. Someone added an individual to the chat who should not have been there.
As President Trump put it so clearly, “It’s all a witch hunt.” This is standard fare for the Democrats, and I commend President Trump for holding the line instead of buckling under pressure and asking anyone from his administration to step down.
As a Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I want to get to the bottom of how this journalist was added to the chat and make sure that such a breach never happens again. I laud President Trump’s efforts to ride above the current political noise and focus on keeping Americans safe, restoring trade routes in the Middle East, and putting America First.
Tweet of the Week:
Photo of the Week:
Jackie de Laveaga from Flagstaff, AZ shares this photo of a giant Saguaro cactus along the shore of Saguaro Lake noting that it appears like a lizard crawling up the rocks! I see the lizard, too. Thanks for sharing, Jackie.
📸 Do you want the chance for your photograph to be featured as our “Picture of the Week?” If so, send your best shots along with a brief description to Anthony.foti@mail.house.gov. Remember to include your name and where you live.
⚠ Warning!! The Gosar Weekly Newsletter is meant for discerning readers with above average intelligence. We link to interesting stories. We get stories a couple different ways: Google alerts, a third-party aggregator and sometimes readers send stuff. We don’t vouch for every publication or every author. If we link to a story, it is because of that story. The views expressed in any of the publications do not represent any promotion, endorsement or reflection of Congressman Gosar’s views. While we try our best, we cannot guarantee every news organization spouting hatred, animosity or divisiveness will be filtered from appearing in the Gosar Weekly Newsletter. We will endeavor to prevent that from happening by never linking to Fake News organizations including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Rolling Stone, the Arizona Republic, the Arizona Mirror, Media Matters or the New Republic.
