SEVP to Mail Notices to OPT Students Without Employer Information

September 2, 2020

On Friday, August 28, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) announced that they are “conducting a review of SEVIS records for OPT participants and is mailing notices directly to students who have not reported employer information and have exceeded 90 days of unemployment”. The notice informs students of their lack of employer/employment information in SEVIS and provides an opportunity for them to update their records either through their school or directly through the SEVP Portal. “If the student’s SEVIS record is not updated, SEVP will set the record to “terminated” to reflect the lack of employer information and the potential that the student may have violated their status either by failing to timely report OPT employment or by exceeding the permissible period of unemployment while on OPT”.

Students whose SEVIS records show that they have exceeded 90 days of allowed unemployment will receive notices (by mail) from SEVP. If the OPT employment information is not added to the student’s record within 15 days from the date of the notice, the record will be terminated by the SEVIS system.

In view of the above, it is very important that you make sure that the following information is updated in your SEVIS record:

• Your current address in the U.S. where SEVP will be mailing the notice
• Your OPT employment information

You can update your address and your OPT employment information in your SEVP Portal account. For more information about SEVP Portal, please see https://www.cmu.edu/oie/opt-reporting/index.html 

Please note: if your OPT employment start date is more than 10 days in the past, you will not be able to update your OPT employment in SEVP Portal. In this case you will need to submit a request to OIE in MyOIE Portal to update your OPT employment information and we will be more than happy to assist. For the information about MyOIE Portal, please see https://www.cmu.edu/oie/foreign-students/MyOIE/index.html

You do not need to update your employment in both SEVP Portal AND MyOIE Portal. If you have updated it in one, it is sufficient.

If you have already reported your employment, you do NOT need to do it again.

Please note that it is one of the government requirements that you report your job while on OPT within 10 days from the start of the job. Please be sure to follow this reporting requirement for the duration of your OPT, or you will be considered in violation of your F-1 status and OPT regulations.

 If you have any questions, please contact OIE at oie@andrew.cmu.edu.