Boston judge blocks four-year cap on student visas a day before it was to take effect

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Monday blocked a Homeland Security rule that would have capped most foreign student and exchange visas at four years and cut foreign journalists to 240 days. The rule had been set to take effect on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV, appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote that the government's reasons were "exceptionally weak" and that the damage to colleges and the economy would be "catastrophic" if the cap went live while the case proceeds.

Under the existing system, students on F visas and exchange visitors on J visas may stay for the length of their program. Many doctoral courses run longer than four years. The new rule would have forced those students to apply for extensions that DHS officials could deny without appeal. It would also have restricted second degrees at the same level, changes of field and transfers between universities. I visas for journalists, which can now run for years, would have been limited to 240 days, and to 90 days for journalists from China.

About 1.6 million people hold F visas and another 500,000 hold J visas. Research universities such as MIT and Harvard enroll large shares of foreign graduate students. Saylor noted that the present system has let tens of millions of scholars work in American labs and classrooms. He said it was "not difficult to imagine how that system might be abused to punish those whose viewpoints or research are disfavored by the officials making the decision, or, indeed, punish disfavored institutions."

DHS had argued that a rise in these visa classes strained its ability to monitor holders and that fixed terms would reduce fraud. Saylor wrote that the national-security claim "borders on the absurd" and that officials "did not explain how a four-year cap will prevent individuals from obtaining visas by fraud." He found that the anecdotes the department offered would not have been stopped by the cap. He also found that DHS failed to answer concerns in more than 20,000 public comments and failed to consider lighter options, which the Administrative Procedure Act requires.

The plaintiffs are a coalition of unions and higher-education groups. Saylor denied their request for immediate summary judgment. He scheduled another hearing for October 2. The injunction keeps duration-of-status rules in place until then and, if the government appeals, likely longer. A separate group of Democratic-led states filed a different suit the same week against a rule that would let officers deny green cards to immigrants who use lawful public benefits. That case is not before Saylor.

For registrars the practical effect is immediate. A doctoral student admitted this month can plan a six-year course without an extra DHS filing at year four. A lab that hired a postdoctoral fellow on a J visa does not have to rebuild the appointment around a hard stop. Foreign correspondents on I visas keep the older duration. Universities that had already written contingency letters can put them in a drawer.

The policy fight will continue. The administration can rewrite the rule with a fuller record or take Saylor's order to the First Circuit. What it cannot do on Tuesday morning is start clocking four-year terms against people already in the country. That was the point of filing the day before the effective date. Saylor accepted the timing argument as well as the legal one. Colleges, he wrote, would suffer "immediate irreparable harm" if the cap took effect during the case.

International students pay full tuition at many public campuses and fill graduate slots that domestic applicants do not. Journalists on I visas cover the United States for foreign audiences. Both groups would have moved from a status tied to their work to a status tied to a calendar and to an unappealable extension. Saylor treated that shift as a change large enough to require a real explanation. He did not find one in the record DHS filed.

October 2 will not end the dispute. It will decide whether the injunction stays while the judge hears the rest of the case. Until then the old clocks run. Students already here keep the time their programs need. That is the fact on the ground after Monday's order.