A software engineer from Nigeria called Jim Hacking while adjusting status through marriage. On F-1 and then OPT, he had kept running a web-development business: freelancers he manages, some clients inside the United States, revenue routed to a Nigerian account, and no U.S. taxes filed on any of it. He asked whether it would affect how hard USCIS looks at his case. It was the wrong thing to have done, and the wrong thing to volunteer under oath.
mic What the Attorney Says
“I’m basically working and running a company while I’m on an F1. This is a catastrophic mistake. They’re going to be all over this.”
Two separate problems stack here. The first is status. F-1 employment is tightly limited under 8 CFR § 214.2(f), and self-employment is not authorized on F-1 at all; even on OPT it is allowed only for a properly established business whose work matches the field of study. Running a company for clients located in the United States looks like unauthorized work no matter where the money lands.
The second is taxes. Income earned for work performed in the United States is U.S. income, and not reporting it is its own exposure, one that reaches well beyond immigration.
mic What the Attorney Says
“You might need to talk to a federal criminal defense attorney.”
The assumption that a foreign bank account keeps this invisible is the mistake. Money moving across borders leaves a trail the government can read, and Hacking was emphatic that the era of hoping it goes unnoticed is over.
mic What the Attorney Says
“They know everything about money. Any money that you’re sending overseas back and forth, any funny bank accounts, they know about all of it.”
For a student on F-1 or OPT, the takeaways are concrete. Do not self-employ or freelance without proper OPT authorization tied to your field. File U.S. tax returns on U.S.-source income even when it is paid abroad. And before an interview where any of this could surface, talk to counsel (ideally with a tax and, if needed, criminal-defense advisor) before answering questions under oath. Unauthorized employment can independently bar adjustment, the same category of risk that makes the 180-day limit of INA 245(k) matter for employment cases, and business structure carries tax consequences of its own, as with an H4 EAD holder taxed on S-corp or LLC income. Enforcement is already scrutinizing student work: see ICE’s focus on OPT employment and the 90-day rule.