Overview
- U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV granted a nationwide preliminary injunction on Monday that prevents the Department of Homeland Security rule from taking effect on Sept. 15 while an Administrative Procedure Act challenge proceeds.
- The July rule would have ended the long‑standing ‘‘duration of status’’ practice and imposed fixed admission periods, generally up to four years for F and J visa holders and 240 days for most I visa journalists, with narrower 90‑day limits for some Chinese journalists.
- Under the rule students seeking more time would have had to file $400 extension requests with USCIS that are limited to narrow grounds, decided by officers with no appeal right, a process critics say will add large administrative burdens and strain slow USCIS processing times.
- Judge Saylor sharply criticized DHS’s record, saying the agency failed to respond to thousands of public comments, did not consider less burdensome alternatives, and offered a weak national‑security justification that the court found insufficient.
- The injunction keeps the existing duration‑of‑status system in place for now, leaves the broader legal challenge unresolved, and could shape whether U.S. colleges, research programs, and foreign journalists face new limits that plaintiffs say would reduce enrollment and harm research capacity.