Judge halts DHS rule putting time limit on student visa stays

A federal judge is blocking another of President Donald Trump’s moves to curb widespread immigration fraud and illegal immigration, targeting a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule governing student and other temporary visas.

The DHS rule, published in July, would allow foreign nationals holding F (student) and J (foreign exchange visitor) visas to legally stay in the U.S. for a maximum of four years, after which point the visa-holders have the option of applying to extend the duration of their stays. The extension process would require submitting biometric data to DHS through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Foreign nationals in the U.S. on I (foreign media) visas would be permitted to stay for up to 240 days before being required to apply to extend their visas through the same process.

“Studying and participating in exchange visitor and academic programs in the United States offers aliens access to world-renowned, individualized instructional and educational programs. Similarly, the United States allows foreign news and media members access to the United States as part of their foreign employment,” the DHS rule says.

“The significant increase in the volume of F academic students, J exchange visitors, and I representatives of information media under [duration of status] poses a challenge to DHS's ability to monitor and oversee these nonimmigrants while they are in the United States,” it continues.

Under the previous policy, called “duration of status,” foreign nationals in the U.S. on F and J visas were rarely required to interact with DHS and federal immigration enforcement, except when applying for certain employment programs.

“Admission for D/S, in general, does not afford immigration officers enough predetermined opportunities to directly verify that aliens granted such nonimmigrant statuses are engaging only in those activities their respective classifications authorize while they are in the United States,” the DHS rule says. “In turn, this has undermined DHS's ability to effectively enforce compliance with the statutory inadmissibility grounds related to unlawful presence and has created incentives for fraud and abuse.”

A coalition of university associations filed a lawsuit in August challenging the rule change, arguing that the new DHS policy is “arbitrary and capricious” and therefore in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor agreed in a Sept. 14 nationwide preliminary injunction barring DHS from implementing the rule change.

While the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in Trump v. CASA, Inc. formally barred district courts from implementing nationwide injunctions, instead restricting the lower courts to placing injunctions only relating to the plaintiffs in the case before them, Saylor reasoned that his case was an exception to that rule.

“Plaintiffs represent almost 600 public and private institutions,” he wrote. “But there are more than 5,000 higher-education institutions in the United States. Limiting relief to the parties represented would require maintaining parallel regulatory regimes and making repeated and potentially inconsistent determinations of whether a particular student or institution falls within the scope of the order.”

The judge argued that the APA permits issuing nationwide injunctions in extraordinary circumstances where an injunction “prevents chaos and confusion that a party-specific order would inevitably generate.”

“The Court will therefore grant the motion for a preliminary injunction to the extent it seeks to postpone the effective date of the Final Rule,” he wrote.

The injunction was handed down the day before the DHS rule change was scheduled to take effect.

Gabriel Canaan, government relations manager at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), argued that the DHS rule change is a necessary measure to prevent the abuse of temporary visas.

Under duration of status, foreign nationals were permitted to remain in the U.S. “indefinitely,” provided that they maintained good standing in their educational, cultural exchange, or media fields.

“That structure has historically made it difficult for immigration authorities to address visa overstays and keep track of a growing number of nonimmigrant visa holders. It has also incentivized drawn-out degree programs as a means of remaining in the United States,” Canaan said.

He noted that visa overstays account for a significant share of the illegal alien population in the U.S. and that abuse of the student visa program in particular has been used by China and other hostile foreign powers to commit espionage and undermine U.S. advances in critical fields like technology and artificial intelligence.

“Many foreign nationals who enter through the nonimmigrant visa system stay past their visas’ expiration dates,” Canaan said. “These nonimmigrant visas present unique opportunities for fraud and abuse, and recent growth in the F and J visa populations has led to accompanying rises in the number of individuals attempting to remain in the country well beyond the time needed to complete degree programs or exchange activities.”