Training and Internship Programs: The Placement Plan
The written plan is the whole of the program. It divides the placement into phases, names a supervisor for each, states what will be learned and how that will be measured, and commits three parties who each answer for a different part of it.
The rule in short
A designated sponsor places an exchange visitor with a host organization under a written placement plan signed by all three parties before the program starts. The plan sets out phases, learning objectives, supervision and the evaluation schedule. Certain placements are barred outright, including unskilled or casual labor and positions weighted toward clerical work. The sponsor verifies the host's capacity and carries the sanction if the placement is not what the plan described.
A host company in a training or internship program does not file anything with the government. It signs a plan with a designated sponsor, and that plan is the document a reviewer will read against what the participant actually did. Every obligation the host has runs through it.
Three parties, three different exposures
The sponsor holds the designation. It selects participants, screens hosts, issues program documents, monitors the placement and reports to the Department. It is also the party that can be sanctioned, up to loss of the designation that lets it operate at all.
The host organization supplies the placement, the supervisor and the training. It makes representations in the plan about its capacity and about the nature of the work, and those representations are what a site visit tests.
The participant signs the plan too, which matters more than it appears. A participant who signs a plan describing structured training and is then handed routine production work has documentary evidence of the gap.
What the plan has to contain
The plan is written before the program begins and is signed by all three parties before the participant starts. It divides the placement into phases. For each phase it states the specific goals and objectives, the knowledge or skill to be acquired, the methodology by which it will be taught, the supervisor responsible, and how the participant's acquisition of that knowledge will be measured.
It also records the compensation, the hours, the worksite and the insurance arrangements. None of this is boilerplate: the plan is the standard against which the placement is judged, so a plan written in generalities gives the host nothing to point at when asked what the participant was supposed to be learning in the third month.
Whether the host qualifies
A host must have sufficient plant, equipment and trained personnel to deliver what the plan describes. The sponsor verifies this rather than accepting it, and where the host falls below stated size thresholds — fewer than twenty-five employees, or annual revenue below three million dollars — the regulation requires the sponsor to conduct a site visit before the placement is approved.
The threshold is not a judgment about small businesses. It reflects where the risk sits: a placement in a company with two supervisors and no training function is more likely to become ordinary staffing, and the visit is the only way the sponsor sees the room the participant will work in.
| Category | Who is eligible | Outer duration | What the plan emphasizes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trainee | A foreign degree or certificate plus related experience, or substantial experience alone | The longer of the two limits | Advancement of an existing occupational skill set |
| Intern | A student currently enrolled abroad, or a recent graduate within the permitted window | The shorter of the two limits | Exposure to the field the studies relate to |
| Hospitality and tourism placements | Either category, in that occupational field | Capped shorter than the general trainee limit | Rotation through defined functions rather than one post |
| Any category, small host | Host below the stated employee or revenue thresholds | Unchanged | A sponsor site visit before approval |
A placement cannot consist of unskilled or casual labor, and it cannot be weighted toward clerical or office support work beyond the permitted share. Hosts read this as a bar on filing and photocopying and then assign a participant to data entry, scheduling or inbox management because it is what the team needs. The test is what the participant does across the week, not what the plan says the participant does. A supervisor's honest description of a typical day is the document that decides it.
Placements that cannot be approved
Beyond the clerical ceiling, the regulation bars placements in unskilled or casual labor, positions that require or involve child care or elder care, and positions involving clinical care of patients. It also bars any placement that would displace a domestic worker, which is a limit on the host's staffing decisions rather than on the participant's duties.
The displacement limit deserves attention from anyone who has run a workforce reduction. A host that has cut a function and then hosts a participant doing that function has a problem the plan cannot solve, and the reasoning parallels the lookback in layoffs, notification and the duty to consider former workers.
Supervision, evaluation and amendment
Supervision is continuous and it is by the named person. Evaluations are required at the conclusion of the program, and longer programs require a midpoint evaluation as well. Both are signed by the supervisor, and both are evidence: an evaluation that recites the plan's objectives without describing the participant's actual work is worth nothing at a review.
Where the placement changes, the plan is amended and signed again before the change takes effect. This is the discipline that a written compliance plan imposes in any regulated operation, and it is the same one described in preventive controls and the written food safety plan: the document is the control, and an unrecorded deviation is a deviation. Hosts running several placements at once are well advised to have a work visa attorney read the plans against the actual assignments once a year, because drift is gradual and nobody inside the company notices it.
What happens when the placement is not the plan
The sponsor's exposure is regulatory: written reprimand, restrictions on its program, or revocation of its designation. The host's exposure is commercial and reputational, and it arrives as removal from the sponsor's roster. The participant's exposure is the most immediate, because a placement found to be outside the program affects the individual's status directly.
Companies that host under this program and also employ students on training authorization should note that the two regimes are separate and the paperwork does not transfer, as set out in practical training and the employer reporting duty. Both, in turn, sit alongside the ordinary hiring obligations that attach to any worker, described in the verification form and who signs it, and by when.
Points to carry away
- The placement plan must be signed by the sponsor, the host supervisor and the participant before the program begins.
- The plan divides the placement into phases, each with stated objectives and a named supervisor.
- Unskilled or casual labor and positions weighted toward clerical work cannot be the subject of a plan.
- Trainee programs run to a longer outer limit than internship programs, and one occupational field is capped shorter.
- The sponsor must conduct a site visit where the host organization falls below stated size thresholds.
- Evaluations are required at the conclusion, and at the midpoint for longer programs.
Questions readers ask
Is the host organization or the sponsor responsible when a placement goes wrong?
Both, in different ways. The sponsor holds the designation and answers to the Department for the program, so the sanction falls there. The host has signed a plan and made representations about supervision, capacity and the nature of the work, and a sponsor that is sanctioned because a host misrepresented the placement will act on that. In practice the enforceable consequence for a host is removal from the sponsor's roster and, where the misrepresentation was deliberate, exposure under whatever agreement the two signed.
Can the participant be paid?
Yes, and the plan states the compensation. Payment does not convert a training placement into ordinary employment, and the absence of payment does not make an unlawful placement lawful. What matters is whether the work is the structured training the plan describes. A paid placement that follows the phases and the supervision described is compliant; an unpaid placement in which the participant performs routine production work for the host is not, and the lack of wages makes it worse rather than better.
What has to happen when the placement changes?
The plan is amended and signed again. A change of supervisor, a change of the department the participant sits in, a substantive change to the duties or a change of worksite all take the placement outside what the three parties agreed. The amendment goes through the sponsor, not directly between the host and the participant. Hosts that treat a reassignment as an internal matter create the most common finding in this area: a participant doing work no signed document describes.
Sources
- eCFR — 22 CFR Part 62, Exchange Visitor ProgramThe full regulation governing designated sponsors and the exchange categories.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute — 22 CFR 62.22, Trainees and InternsThe placement plan, eligibility, prohibited placements, durations and site visit duty.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute — 22 CFR 62.10, General Program RequirementsThe sponsor's continuing duties of selection, orientation, monitoring and reporting.
- Cornell Legal Information Institute — 22 CFR 62.50, SanctionsThe sanctions available against a sponsor, including revocation of designation.
- U.S. Department of State — Exchange Visitor ProgramThe Department's own account of the categories and the role of a designated sponsor.
- U.S. Department of State — Exchange Visitor VisasHow a participant is documented once a sponsor has accepted the placement.
Lawwise is a publication, not a law firm. This article states general rules and cites its sources; it is not advice about any particular case, and the law differs by state and changes over time.
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