Biden administration will not pursue time limits on certain student visas

The U.S Department of Homeland Security has withdrawn a proposed rule that would have attached fixed time limits to certain student visas, continuing the Biden administration’s push to reverse a range of immigration-related policies of his predecessor Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal report said.

In September, the Trump administration proposed adding a fixed end-date to student visas when they are issued, which would have been a departure from the earlier practice of allowing the visas to remain valid as long as the international student is enrolled in school, the report said.

According to the report, Under the 2020 plan, most visas would expire after four years, even if the student needed more time to complete a degree; students born in several dozen countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa would be limited to two-year terms. Last year, more than 1.1 million students were in the U.S. on F visas, one of the categories that would have been affected by the proposed rule.

The Department of Homeland Security detailed its withdrawal of the proposal in the Federal Register on Tuesday. The agency said it received roughly 32,000 comments in the month after the rule was recommended, and more than 99% of those expressed opposition to the plan.

The commenters said the proposed rule was discriminatory and would put an unnecessary and costly burden on students and others affected by the time limits, as they would need to apply for extensions, the government said.

In February, President Biden issued an executive order instructing Homeland Security to review elements of the system that might block access to immigration benefits. The agency said Tuesday it is concerned that the Trump administration’s proposed changes would “unnecessarily impede access to immigration benefits” the Wall Streat Journal report said.

The proposed time limits could have had a significant impact on students who wanted to stay in the U.S. for graduate school, as well as those just trying to complete their undergraduate degrees. Among international students who started full-time bachelor’s degree programs in 2012, 51.9% graduated within four years, federal data show, and 71.5% did within six years. Both those figures are higher than the overall four- and six-year U.S. graduation rates of 43.7% and 62.4%, the report said.

The Department of Homeland Security said in Tuesday’s Federal Register posting that it supports the goal of protecting the integrity of the visa programs and could consider other rules to achieve that, the Wall Street Journal report said.