A rule proposed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would subject international students, exchange visitors, and representatives of foreign information media to ‘fixed periods of stay’, has been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). A review by the OMB (whose head reports directly to the US President) is one of the final steps in the rulemaking process.
Post its review, the proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register. Prior to finalisation of a rule, typically a 30 or 60 day window is open for public comments and it takes months before a rule is final. However, experts in the education space are apprehensive that it could be issued as an interim final rule, which would come into effect immediately without inviting public comments.
International students have not yet got out of the quagmire relating to abrupt and ‘unlawful’ termination of their SEVIS records - at times together with revocation of their F-1 visa and they now have to gear up to face yet another policy challenge.
The current norms are more flexible. International students are not admitted into the US until a specific departure date. They can stay in the US, as long as they are studying (in technical terms this means as long as they are engaged in the activity for which the visa was issued).
Rajiv S. Khanna, managing attorney at Immigration.com told TOI, “Currently, international students can stay in the US as long as they are maintaining their full-time student status in approved programs. This is referred to as ‘duration of status’. The Trump administration wants to change this to a predefined period of stay. With a fixed expiration date on their visa, international students would have to periodically apply for extensions. This will create additional unnecessary delays, financial burden and uncertainty for students. Considering that an average extension of status request can take a few months to process, these types of restrictive regulations will increase the uncertainty international students would face.”
A similar rule to do away with ‘duration of status’ was proposed in 2020 by the earlier Trump administration but could not be finalised. TOI in its edition of Nov 7, 2024, had predicted that this rule would be revived again. With 4.2 lakh students, Indians were the largest cohort of international students during 2024. The proposed change, if implemented, would adversely affect them.
A representative of a US university added that the proposed tenure of an international student’s visa will be known only once the rule is published in the Federal Register. Will students have to reapply for an extension each semester or each year? Student overstay is just a boogie, the total overstay rate for student and exchange visitors (J visa) was just 3.6% in 2023. The proposed move is not a solution, in fact the uncertainty surrounding each visa extension, will not bode good for the international student community or the US educational sector, he stated.
“The proposed change from duration of status procedure would also result in a change to current policies relating to unlawful presence. Currently, international students accrue unlawful presence only after US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes a formal finding or an immigration judge orders the individual to be excluded, deported or removed. This could change and unlawful presence could accrue after the last date of their finite authorised stay, except in a narrow set of circumstances,” explains Mitch Wexler, Senior Counsel at Fragomen, a global immigration law firm. The change will be crucial because under US laws, if an individual is unlawfully present for more than 180 days or 365 days, it triggers a three or ten year bar, he adds.
Post its review, the proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register. Prior to finalisation of a rule, typically a 30 or 60 day window is open for public comments and it takes months before a rule is final. However, experts in the education space are apprehensive that it could be issued as an interim final rule, which would come into effect immediately without inviting public comments.
International students have not yet got out of the quagmire relating to abrupt and ‘unlawful’ termination of their SEVIS records - at times together with revocation of their F-1 visa and they now have to gear up to face yet another policy challenge.
The current norms are more flexible. International students are not admitted into the US until a specific departure date. They can stay in the US, as long as they are studying (in technical terms this means as long as they are engaged in the activity for which the visa was issued).
Rajiv S. Khanna, managing attorney at Immigration.com told TOI, “Currently, international students can stay in the US as long as they are maintaining their full-time student status in approved programs. This is referred to as ‘duration of status’. The Trump administration wants to change this to a predefined period of stay. With a fixed expiration date on their visa, international students would have to periodically apply for extensions. This will create additional unnecessary delays, financial burden and uncertainty for students. Considering that an average extension of status request can take a few months to process, these types of restrictive regulations will increase the uncertainty international students would face.”
A similar rule to do away with ‘duration of status’ was proposed in 2020 by the earlier Trump administration but could not be finalised. TOI in its edition of Nov 7, 2024, had predicted that this rule would be revived again. With 4.2 lakh students, Indians were the largest cohort of international students during 2024. The proposed change, if implemented, would adversely affect them.
A representative of a US university added that the proposed tenure of an international student’s visa will be known only once the rule is published in the Federal Register. Will students have to reapply for an extension each semester or each year? Student overstay is just a boogie, the total overstay rate for student and exchange visitors (J visa) was just 3.6% in 2023. The proposed move is not a solution, in fact the uncertainty surrounding each visa extension, will not bode good for the international student community or the US educational sector, he stated.
“The proposed change from duration of status procedure would also result in a change to current policies relating to unlawful presence. Currently, international students accrue unlawful presence only after US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes a formal finding or an immigration judge orders the individual to be excluded, deported or removed. This could change and unlawful presence could accrue after the last date of their finite authorised stay, except in a narrow set of circumstances,” explains Mitch Wexler, Senior Counsel at Fragomen, a global immigration law firm. The change will be crucial because under US laws, if an individual is unlawfully present for more than 180 days or 365 days, it triggers a three or ten year bar, he adds.
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