Citing both “national security” and “fraud and abuse” of international student visas, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced plans to eliminate the “duration of status” policy for F-1 and J-1 academic visas.
The new policy announced on 27 August and, which will likely go into effect in 2026, will see visas tied to the duration of the programme, for instance, four years for most BAs. International students wishing to change their programme will require the DHS’s approval.
In announcing the new rule, which is expected to be in place following the mandatory 60-day public input period, the DHS said in a press release: “For too long, past administrations have allowed foreign students and other visa holders to remain in the US virtually indefinitely, posing safety risks, costing an untold amount of taxpayer dollars, and disadvantageous to US citizens.
“This new proposed rule would end that abuse once and for all by limiting the amount of time certain visa holders are allowed to remain in the US, easing the burden on the federal government to properly oversee foreign students and their history.”
According to the press release, during his first administration, President Donald J Trump proposed ending the “duration of stay” regulation that had been in place since 1978. In 2021, the administration of Joe Biden withdrew the changes Trump proposed, “much to the detriment of US citizens and taxpayers”.
What does the data say?
The statistical evidence presented by the DHS hardly seems to justify the proposed changes.
In the Federal Register, where all US government regulations must be published, the notice of these changes states that the “DHS has many examples of students and exchange visitors staying for decades in their student or exchange visitor status”.
The footnote to this sentence further explains that the “DHS has identified over 2,100 aliens who first entered as F-1 students between 2000 and 2010 and remain in active F-1 status as of Apr. 6, 2025”.
Data from the Institute of International Education shows the average number of international students in the US between 2000 and 2010 was 950,000. Accordingly, the per cent of students identified as “forever” students in that decade is 0.221%.
“The proposal represents a dangerous overreach by government into academia, as it would give USCIS oversight over decisions that have long been the domain of academia, including changes to a student’s course of study and to their level of study.
“International students and exchange visitors are already rigorously tracked in the SEVIS database and are the most closely monitored non-immigrants in the country,” said Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, in a press release issued shortly after the DHS’s proposals were made public.
The DHS’s proposals have also drawn fire from the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration (Presidents’ Alliance), which includes 580 college and university presidents from more than 40 states. It denounced the proposed changes.
“The proposed rule is yet another unnecessary and counterproductive action aimed against international students and scholars.
“The rule would force them to regularly and unnecessarily submit additional applications to be able to stay in the country and fulfil [the] requirements of their academic programmes, imposing significant burdens on students, colleges and universities, and federal agencies alike.
“It would also increase the existing immigration application backlog.
“If finalised, this rule would create additional uncertainty, intrude on academic decision-making, increase bureaucratic hurdles, and risk deterring international students, researchers, and scholars from coming to the United States,” said Aw.
Inefficient and harmful
In NAFSA’s press release, Aw also noted that having a fixed expiration date is both inefficient from the government’s point-of-view and will harm “aspiring [international] students and scholars” because it will force them into “a sea of administrative delays at best, and at worst, into unlawful presence status – leaving them vulnerable to punitive actions through no fault of their own”.
Aw also noted that the DHS’s proposal flies in “direct opposition to President Trump’s comments during his cabinet meeting on August 26 in support of international students in the United States”.
At that cabinet meeting, Trump surprised his cabinet and the press by saying, notwithstanding the many travel bans he has put in place: “It’s very insulting to say students can’t come here.... I like that other countries’ students come here”. A day earlier, he announced that he’d like to see 600,000 Chinese students come to study in the US rather than last year’s figure of 277,000.
Trump’s surprise statement drew the ire of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican from Georgia), who took to X to say: “We should not let in 600,000 CHINESE students to attend American colleges and universities that may be loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“If refusing to allow these Chinese students to attend our schools causes 15% of them to fail then these schools should fail anyways because they are being propped up by the CCP.”
Speaking on Fox News, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tried to explain the dichotomy in Trump’s position by saying that, in his view, “if you didn’t have 600,000 students . . . you’d empty them from the top, all the students would go to better schools, and the bottom 15% of universities and colleges would go out of business in America”.
Bad news for the US economy
Both NAFSA and the Presidents’ Alliance predicted that if the proposed regulatory changes go ahead, international enrolment will suffer and, as a result, so will America’s economy.
According to Aw, the proposed regulations “will certainly act as an additional deterrent to international students choosing to study in the United States, to the detriment of American economies, innovation and global competitiveness”.
Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance, said that the proposed regulations are “not only detrimental to international students – [they] also weaken the ability of US colleges and universities to attract top talent, diminishing our global competitiveness.”
From her position in the Netherlands-based Studyportals, the world’s largest online study choice portal, Cara Skikne, Studyportals’ head of communication and thought leadership, sees the proposed changes as further dampening international student interest in studying in the US, which, as these pages have reported, Studyportals’ data choice has plummeted by almost 50% since Trump returned to power in January.
“Moving from ‘duration of status’ to fixed-expiration visas represents a fundamental shift in how the US approaches international student policy,” says Skikne.
“Rigid timelines will add uncertainty and risk, making the US a less attractive option, and creating problems for students who want the option of switching majors or extending their studies.
“At a time when global competition for talent is fiercer than ever, this proposal risks further pushing down international student numbers in the US,” Skikne wrote in an email to University World News.
“At a time when the US is already facing declines in international student enrolment, we must do everything we can to keep the door open to these individuals, who are essential to our future prosperity. This is not the time to erect additional barriers or reduce the flow of global talent.”