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Khushboo Razdan

A US federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a new visa cap for international students, visiting scholars and foreign journalists, saying the Trump administration’s national security justification “borders on the absurd”.
Judge F. Dennis Saylor in Boston said the rationale for the restriction was “exceptionally weak”, and the connection between the rule and the problems it purported to address was “exceptionally attenuated”.
He wrote that the US Department of Homeland Security had built the case “almost entirely on a small handful of anecdotes, each of which involved incidents that the new rule would do nothing to prevent or even mitigate”.
In July, the department published a final rule doing away with the long-standing “duration of status” system, under which holders of F, J and I visas may remain for the length of their programme or assignment.
Under the new rule, which was scheduled to take effect on Tuesday, foreign journalists would be limited to 240 days in the US, with no way to appeal if the renewal was denied. For Chinese passport holders, excluding those from Hong Kong and Macau, the limit would be just 90 days.
The US State Department issued 12,924 I visas to foreign media in 2024.
Saylor, who was appointed by former president George W. Bush, said “the possibilities for abuse are rampant”, pointing to “the obvious likelihood” that the visas of foreign journalists critical of the government would not be renewed.
The rule would limit international students’ stays to four years and restrict programme changes, transfers and second degrees at the same academic level. Additionally, it would cut the post-graduation grace period from 60 days to just 30 days.


India and China together make up more than half of all foreign students in the US. India is now the biggest source, with 363,019 students in 2024-25, ahead of China’s 265,919, which was down by 4 per cent from a year earlier and well below its pre-pandemic peak of about 370,000.
New arrivals are falling faster. US campuses reported a 17 per cent drop in first-time international enrolments in autumn last year.
The Department of Homeland Security had argued that the “duration of status” policy let people linger and hop between programmes. Saylor said the agency failed to show how a blunt time limit would resolve those problems and criticised the department for treating a possible collapse in foreign enrolment as inconsequential.
“The damage to the higher education system and to the economy of the United States is likely to be catastrophic,” Saylor wrote, adding that the cap “will have the unavoidable effect of making the United States a less attractive destination for the world’s top students”.
Adam Rose, deputy director of advocacy at the New York-based Freedom of the Press Foundation, called the ruling “a victory for the United States”, saying the administration’s targeting of journalist visas was “fundamentally un-American and a betrayal of the First Amendment”.
He warned that forcing journalists to renew visas every few months could enable content-based denials and “chill the ability to report freely”. The policy, he added, could also be weaponised by future administrations to target opposing viewpoints and critical coverage.
A coalition of university groups and labour unions sued to challenge the rule last month. Until the lawsuit is decided, the old system stays: students, visiting researchers and foreign reporters may remain for the length of their programmes or assignments.
The next hearing in the case will be held on October 2. US President Donald Trump’s administration is expected to appeal against the temporary freeze.
The fight comes amid a wider squeeze on legal immigration.
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security proposed ending the 60-day grace period that lets H-1B and other work visa holders stay and find a new sponsor following a lay-off.
Last month, the agency floated a US$103,265 fee for most new H-1B petitions for skilled foreign workers.
Additionally, after warnings last month from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, several institutions including Stanford University, Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan paused or restricted off-campus internships for international students.


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The last-minute freeze keeps old rules in place as legal challenge by university groups and labour unions makes its way through the courts


The last-minute freeze keeps old rules in place as legal challenge by university groups and labour unions makes its way through the courts.


US judge blocks Trump’s ‘absurd’ visa caps for students, journalists

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The last-minute freeze keeps old rules in place as legal challenge by university groups and labour unions makes its way through the courts

The last-minute freeze keeps old rules in place as legal challenge by university groups and labour unions makes its way through the courts