The controversy - the latest in the lightly regulated J-1 program - prompted a State Department investigation into the conditions in Hershey. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton backed a top-to-bottom review of the program.
"They are done as far as work travel is concerned," Rick Ruth, a top official in the State Department, said of CETUSA.
The specific J-1 component that the organization used to bring the students to the United States is called Summer Work Travel. It sponsored 5,000 to 6,000 students a year through that avenue.
CETUSA also participates in other J-1 exchange components - Secondary School Student, Trainee, and Intern. That involvement is under a separate review by the State Department.
In addition to banning CETUSA for two years, the State Department has capped participation in the J-1 Work Travel program to 109,000 foreign students in 2012, the same level as 2011. After about a decade of rapid growth, the program peaked in 2008 with 153,000 foreign student/workers, many of them working in resort areas such as Wildwood and Cape Cod.
The State Department is likely to announce new J-1 regulations in the next several months. One area ripe for new restrictions is the type of jobs foreign students can hold when entering the United States on a J-1 visa.
The State Department would like them in jobs in which they regularly meet Americans, not in hazardous or hard-labor occupations such as construction and roofing.
