US judge halts new stay limits for foreign students, media representatives

A US federal judge has temporarily blocked a Trump administration rule that would have placed fixed limits on the time foreign students, exchange visitors and overseas media representatives could remain in the United States.

Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted a request by the plaintiffs to postpone the rule’s implementation under Section 705 of the Administrative Procedure Act. The measure had been due to take effect on Tuesday.

Published by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in July, the rule sought to replace the existing “duration of status” system covering F-class academic students, J-class exchange visitors and I-class foreign media representatives.

Under the proposed framework, F and J visa holders would generally have been allowed to remain for the length of their academic or exchange programmes, subject to a maximum period of four years. They would also have received 30 days to leave the country after completing their programmes.

Those requiring additional time to finish their studies, training or exchange activities would have been required to apply to US Citizenship and Immigration Services for an extension.

Foreign media representatives holding I-class visas would have been admitted for the time needed to complete their assignments, with each stay capped at 240 days. Extensions would have remained available.

A coalition of organisations filed a lawsuit on 18th August seeking to stop the rule. The plaintiffs include NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, the American Federation of Teachers, United Auto Workers Local 2322 and The NewsGuild-CWA.

The court’s intervention comes amid broader attempts by the administration to tighten rules governing non-immigrant visa holders.

Earlier this month, the administration proposed removing the grace period of up to 60 days that allows H-1B workers and holders of several other employment-based visas to remain in the country after losing their jobs.

The proposal would eliminate the provision covering E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1 and TN visa categories, as well as their dependants.

If finalised, affected workers would generally be expected to leave the United States as soon as their employment or qualifying activity ended, unless they had another legal basis to remain.

DHS argued that the existing grace period separates a visa holder’s lawful status from the employment or activity on which that status was originally based.

With IANS inputs