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A traveler displays a canceled visa in their passport at Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, on February 6, 2017—Reuters.
– The proposed regulation limits student and exchange visas to a maximum of four years.
– Media visas could be reduced to either 240 days or 90 days for Chinese nationals.
– Currently, about 1.6 million foreign students hold F visas in the U.S.
The Trump administration plans to tighten visa durations for students, cultural exchange participants, and media personnel as part of a broader effort to curtail legal immigration.
President Donald Trump initiated an extensive immigration enforcement campaign shortly after taking office in January. The latest proposal would introduce new hurdles for foreign students, exchange program workers, and journalists, requiring them to apply for visa extensions rather than retaining more flexible legal statuses.
Under the new regulation, the duration of F visas for international students, J visas for cultural exchange workers, and I visas for media members would be capped at four years. Meanwhile, the media visa validity would be limited to either 240 days or 90 days for Chinese nationals, though extensions would still be possible.
The administration states that these changes aim to improve monitoring and oversight of visa holders while they are in the U.S. The public has 30 days to comment on the proposal, which echoes a similar plan introduced in 2020 during Trump’s first term.
Organizations like NAFSA, representing international educators across thousands of institutions worldwide, opposed the 2020 proposal and urged the Trump administration to abandon it. The Biden administration, under President Joe Biden, withdrew the plan in 2021.
Throughout his presidency, Trump intensified scrutiny of legal immigration, revoking student visas and green cards based on ideological reasons and stripping legal status from hundreds of thousands of migrants. Recently, on August 22, USCIS announced plans to resume home visits to citizenship applicants to verify residency, moral character, and dedication to American values.
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