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President Donald Trump’s administration has launched an investigation into nine universities, including the University of California, Davis, over potential visa fraud. It marks the latest in a series of probes and lawsuits the federal government has unleashed against higher education institutions since 2025.
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At a news conference Thursday, Vice President JD Vance accused the nine schools of using the J-1 visa program “way too much” and as a way to “undercut the wages of American graduate students and researchers.”
The J-1 visa category is used for people approved to participate in work- and study-based exchange visitor programs in the United States. This includes — but is not limited to — professors, scholars, research assistants, students, teachers, au pairs and camp counselors.
“When you employ an American worker as a graduate student or a researcher, they’re making $20,000 more than someone brought in under a J-1 visa,” Vance said. “Importantly, these universities are employing J-1 visas for federally funded grants at a rate of about 61%. The national average is 38%. So something weird is going on at these universities.”
Within the UC system, international workers are a part of the union that represents academic researchers and student employees. The contracts negotiated with the UC do not mention different salaries for visa holders versus citizens.
A UC Davis spokesperson said the school complies with all federal laws and regulations for visas and was looking forward to working with the federal government to confirm the same. More than 13% of the school’s nearly 40,000 students are not from the U.S.
The eight other universities targeted in the investigation are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, the California Institute of Technology, Arizona State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Anthony D’Esposito, inspector general of the U.S. Department of Labor, said subpoenas had been served and the investigations were underway. MIT and Brown said they were reviewing subpoenas from the government and Stanford said it would cooperate with the investigation, the Associated Press reported.
Announcing the establishment of a “visa fraud strike team,” D’Esposito said the investigations will attempt to determine if “foreign influence, improper financial relationships or visa abuse are compromising federally funded research.”
This emphasis on protecting research echoed an order issued by the U.S. Department of Defense in August asking 30 institutions to undertake “comprehensive reviews” of their academic, financial and research collaborations with “foreign entities of concern” — mainly Chinese institutions — or risk losing federal research funding.
For UC Davis, this new investigation comes only months after the U.S. Department of Justice concluded after a six-month probe that its medical school had discriminated based on race in its admissions process. The school disagreed with the findings about its “rigorous, individualized and merit-based” admissions process. It said it remains committed to complying with federal and state antidiscrimination laws.
Against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices in higher education, the DOJ’s civil rights division opened investigations into “potential race discrimination” in admissions at several institutions across the country earlier this year.
In recent months, the federal government has taken other steps to restrict international students’ employment in the U.S. The most recent includes a proposed $70,000 fee levied on universities for each international student seeking employment post their program of study and increased scrutiny of a program that allows them to pursue off-campus internships.
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This story was originally published October 8, 2026 at 4:50 PM.