On July 17, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) changed the regulations on “duration of status” or “D/S.” It had permitted international students or others on temporary visas to complete their degree or program of study, which meant that they could come to the U.S. to get an undergrad degree then go on to pursue a Masters and/or a Ph.D. without getting additional visa approvals.
F-1 and J-1 students have been able to stay in the country legally until they were finished, but even though “the new regulation does not cite evidence of a problem that needs to be fixed by eliminating D/S,” the Brookings Institute wrote, the students are now given four years to finish their degree, and they have to apply to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for extensions.
The policy is set to go into effect for new visa holders who arrive on or after September 15, 2026.
On Tuesday, eight organizations (NAFSA: Association of International Educators; the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration; the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts (AICUM); the American Federation Of Teachers (AFT); Graduate Labour Organisation, AFT Local 6516 (GLO); International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW); United Auto Workers Local 2322; and The NewsGuild-CWA) sued to stop the changes from going into effect. They argued that when DHS made the changes, it did so in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA has tripped up many Trump changes because it requires the government to study changes, their possible consequences, and go through the required processes. The current administration has generally preferred to act quickly and pick up the pieces afterwards.
They rest on purported justifications—national security concerns and preventing abuse of the system—that derive from scattered anecdotes and minuscule portions of the affected nonimmigrant population. Simply put, DHS has failed to identify any concrete, systemic problem with the existing duration of status system that would justify a complete regulatory overhaul affecting more than two million nonimmigrants annually and likely to cost the Nation’s economy tens of billions of dollars each year.
The change does not spell out what circumstances would have to be met to qualify for an extension, nor does it lay out a timeline for application or approval. That uncertainty will undoubtedly create a disincentive for international students to apply to higher education institutions in the U.S.
The APA requires DHS to consider the impact of the proposed change, but the plaintiffs contend that the cost-benefit analysis it conducted was inadequate and flawed. They wrote:
The agency acknowledged billions of dollars in quantified costs over ten years, but listed zero quantitative benefits, choosing instead to describe the purported benefits of the rulemaking only qualitatively—likely because those supposed benefits, which are based on nothing more than anecdote and make little sense even on their own terms, would be dwarfed by even the acknowledged costs of the Final Rule. And DHS also refused to quantify—and therefore largely disregarded altogether—the greatest harm of the Final Rule: the foreseeable decline in international student enrollment.
They also contend that during the required public comment period, DHS didn’t meaningfully engage in the process:
Nearly 22,000 public comments—submitted by universities, state attorneys general, Members of Congress, professional associations, research institutions, unions, journalists, students, and concerned citizens—warned DHS that the Final Rule would deter enrollment, overwhelm USCIS, disrupt federally funded research, harm local economies, and accelerate the loss of global talent to competitor nations. Commenters provided no shortage of reasonable and less burdensome alternatives. Yet DHS’s responses to these comments were consistently conclusory, circular, and nonresponsive.
Students on F-1 visas initially had to renew their visas yearly, but 1978 the Immigration and Naturalization Service instituted duration of status, in large part to reduce the amount of paperwork generated by a routine request. The change would increase the amount of paperwork while costing the country billions of dollars. According to the Brookings Institute, A NAFSA study
found that international students at U.S. universities contributed $42.9 billion to the U.S. economy and supported 355,736 U.S. jobs in the 2024-25 academic year. At the state level, 16 state attorneys general stated in their comment to the proposed regulation that international students paid $217 million to New Jersey public institutions during the 2023-24 academic year, $230 million to public California institutions during the 2024-25 academic year, and $190 million to public Oregon institutions in the 2023-24 academic year alone. NAFSA statistics also show t hat international students paid $2.5 billion to Texas institutions, $1.5 billion to Florida institutions, and $339.5 million to Alabama institutions in the 2024-25 academic year.
We have documented the many ways that the current administration will hurt the American economy and actually cost the country money in the pursuit of its hard-line immigration agenda. Here’s yet another, and while we can hope that the courts will intervene, those who are affected should make plans as if the change will not be overturned and take it seriously. F-1 and J-1 visa holders concerned about how this change will affect them if it goes into effect should consult with an experienced immigration lawyer for reliable answers and to consider other possible options.
Photo by Darya Tryfanava on Unsplash.
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