Boston judge freezes Trump’s four-year cap on student and journalist visas

Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts blocked a Department of Homeland Security rule on Monday that would have capped how long foreign students, exchange visitors and journalists can stay in the United States. The rule was due to take effect on Tuesday. Saylor, appointed by George W. Bush, issued a nationwide preliminary injunction after a coalition of university groups, teachers’ unions and journalist organisations sued.

Under the current system, known as duration of status, an F-visa student may remain for as long as the academic programme lasts, plus any authorised practical training. A doctoral student who needs six or seven years does not file a new visa midstream. J-visa exchange visitors follow a similar clock. I-visa journalists have been able to stay for up to five years. The July rule would have replaced that clock with hard limits: four years for students and exchange visitors, 240 days for most journalists, and 90 days for journalists from China. Extensions would have been possible only at DHS discretion, with no appeal if refused.

The rule would also have restricted a second degree at the same level, a change of field, and a transfer between universities. Saylor noted that about 1.6 million people hold F visas and about 500,000 hold J visas. Research campuses such as MIT and Harvard enrol large shares of foreign graduate students. He wrote that the likely harm to universities and to the economy was on a scale the government had not confronted.

DHS had argued that fixed terms would reduce fraud and protect national security. Saylor called those rationales exceptionally weak. He wrote that the national-security claim “borders on the absurd” and that officials had not explained how a four-year cap would stop someone from obtaining a visa by fraud. In his account, the file rested on a handful of anecdotes that the new rule would not have prevented. He also found that the department had failed duties under the Administrative Procedure Act: it did not engage properly with comments and did not consider less burdensome options.

The injunction is temporary. Saylor scheduled a further hearing for 2 October and has not yet ruled on the full merits. He rejected the government’s request to limit relief to the named plaintiffs. The freeze therefore applies across the country. Students already in programmes keep the old clock. New arrivals this autumn are not forced onto a four-year term while the case proceeds.

The policy fight sits inside a wider attempt to shrink the number of foreign students and reporters on U.S. soil. Universities told the court that a four-year cap would hit Ph.D. science and engineering tracks first, because those degrees routinely run longer. Newsrooms that post correspondents for multi-year assignments said a 240-day I visa would turn reporting into a chain of extension filings. Chinese journalists faced the shortest term of all.

Saylor did not decide whether Congress wanted duration of status kept forever. He decided that this particular rule, written this way, could not take effect on Tuesday. That is a narrower holding than the headlines. It is still enough to leave the old system standing through the start of the academic year and through whatever argument the government brings in October.