{"id":304708,"date":"2026-10-11T23:24:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T23:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/304708\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T23:24:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T23:24:25","slug":"pitt-among-9-universities-subpoenaed-in-federal-investigation-over-alleged-visa-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/304708\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitt among 9 universities subpoenaed in federal investigation over alleged visa fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">PITTSBURGH \u2014 Pitt is among nine universities subpoenaed in a federal investigation over alleged fraud in the J-1 visa program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Department of Labor Inspector General Anthony P. D\u2019Esposito announced the probe during a White House Fraud Task Force meeting Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cSubpoenas have been served. Investigations are underway. And nobody gets a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building,\u201d D\u2019Esposito said. \u201cImproperly used J-1 visa classifications to avoid employment obligations, exploit taxpayer-funded programs, and undermine American workers will not be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Also named in the investigation are Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Brown, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State University and MIT.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">The DOL Office of Inspector General alleges that about 61% of postdoctoral workers and researchers supported by federal grants at the nine universities are foreign nationals, whereas it\u2019s 38% at other institutions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Investigators seek to identify \u201cmisuse and misapplication\u201d in the J-1 visa program, which pays out billions in federal research funding, according to a release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">A Pitt spokesperson provided Channel 11 with this statement Thursday evening:<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cWe have received and are reviewing a subpoena from the Department of Labor that asks a number of questions about our participation in their visa programs. The University participates in federal visa programs, including the J-1 program, in accordance with all applicable federal requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 Pitt is among nine universities subpoenaed in a federal investigation over alleged fraud in the J-1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7262,38299,97141,24748,10716,744,1021,125119,124646,125120,33272,101781,125117,3398,125114,125112,125115,125121,125116,125113,73,75,74,2553,125122,125123,21716,125118,29322],"class_list":["post-304708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-abuse","tag-department-of-labor","tag-dol","tag-federal","tag-fraud","tag-government","tag-investigation","tag-j-1","tag-j-1-visa","tag-j-1-visa-fraud","tag-j-d-vance","tag-office-of-inspector-general","tag-oig","tag-pitt","tag-pitt-foreign-nationals","tag-pitt-fraud","tag-pitt-investigation","tag-pitt-j-1-visa","tag-pitt-subpoena","tag-pitt-visas","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-university-of-pittsburgh","tag-university-of-pittsburgh-fraud","tag-university-of-pittsburgh-visas","tag-visa","tag-visa-fraud","tag-waste"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}