US judge blocks Trump’s new four-year student visa rules

Washington: A federal judge in the United States on Monday blocked the Donald Trump administration from enforcing a new rule that would have imposed limits on how long foreign students and journalists could remain in the country without seeking visa extensions, Reuters reported.

The ruling came a day before the regulations were scheduled to take effect and followed a legal challenge by unions and higher education advocacy groups.

The Trump administration had announced the changes in July, arguing that they were intended to curb what the Department of Homeland Security described as visa abuse. Under the proposed system, international students would generally have been permitted to remain in the US for a maximum of four years, Scroll.in reported.

Since 1978, holders of F visas have been allowed to stay in the country for the duration of their status, provided they remain enrolled as full-time students. The proposed changes would also have affected J visa holders participating in cultural exchange programmes and I visa holders working as international journalists. Journalists would have been subject to a 240-day limit.

At a district court in Boston, the judge criticised the Homeland Security Department's justification for the policy, describing its reasoning as exceptionally weak. The court noted that the existing duration-of-status system had been in place for nearly five decades and had enabled millions of international students and researchers to contribute to scientific, medical and technological advances as well as economic growth.

The judge also warned that the proposed regulations could substantially reduce the number of foreign students, academics and journalists able to remain in the US.

James Percival, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, criticised the ruling, arguing that the existing system could allow foreigners to remain in the country for decades while taking minimal coursework. He said the decision would effectively prevent US Immigration and Customs Enforcement from addressing what he characterised as widespread abuse of the immigration system.

The proposed changes were expected to have a particularly significant impact on doctoral students, whose programmes commonly take five to seven years to complete. Indian students form a major portion of the international enrolment in such programmes, with around 3.3 lakh Indian students currently studying in the US.

A similar proposal was introduced during Trump's first term in 2020 but was subsequently withdrawn by the Joe Biden administration in 2021.

Around 1.6 million international students held F visas in the US as of 2024. During the 2023-24 period, authorities also issued approximately 13,000 visas for journalists and more than 3.5 lakh J visas for cultural exchange participants.

The latest court ruling comes amid a broader immigration crackdown pursued by Trump since he returned to office for his second term in January 2025.