The Trump administration has finalised new regulations that impose strict time limits on how long foreign students, cultural exchange visitors, and journalists may remain in the United States, in what critics are calling one of the most sweeping restrictions on legal immigration pathways in decades. The rules, issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and set to take effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, are subject to review by Congress.

Under the new framework, international students on F visas and exchange visitors on J visas — programmes that currently allow holders to remain for the duration of their studies or employment — will be capped at a maximum four-year stay. Foreign journalists on I visas will be limited to 240-day periods, roughly eight months, with the option to apply for extensions of equal length. Chinese nationals working as journalists will face a stricter limit of 90 days per period. The rules also tighten conditions for students specifically: graduate students will be barred from changing their academic objectives or transferring to another institution without prior authorisation, and the grace period to leave the country after completing a degree has been halved from 60 to 30 days. Those wishing to stay beyond their fixed admission period must apply to DHS for an extension or leave the country and re-enter.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin framed the changes as a necessary corrective to decades of lax oversight, arguing that some foreign nationals had exploited open-ended visa durations to remain indefinitely as "forever students" or to extend stays far beyond their original purpose. The department noted more than 1.8 million student visa admissions in 2024 — an increase of over 11 per cent on the previous year — and said the volume posed challenges to its ability to properly monitor visa holders. The DHS received nearly 22,000 public comments after first proposing the rules in August 2025 but finalised them largely unchanged.

The response from educators, immigration experts, and press freedom advocates has been sharply critical. Media rights organisation Reporters Without Borders said it was "outraged", warning the rules would destroy international journalists' ability to report from the United States and make it "extremely difficult for international outlets to operate here at all." The Committee to Protect Journalists described the measure as "the behaviour of a backsliding democracy." Immigration scholars questioned the legal basis for the transfer and study restrictions, with David Bier of the Cato Institute — a Washington-based policy research organisation — noting that students who cannot secure employer sponsorship within 30 days of graduating would effectively be rendered undocumented. Higher education groups warned the changes would further deter international talent at a time when universities have already reported falling enrolments following earlier visa revocations and cuts to federal research funding. The United States hosted more than 1.1 million international students in the 2023–24 academic year, who contributed over $50 billion to the US economy.

The rules carry significant global implications. South Korea's embassy in Washington estimates the changes will affect more than 13,000 South Korean students and their dependents currently residing in the US, along with nearly 350 South Korean media representatives. China had previously objected to the shorter journalist visa periods as discriminatory. A similar proposal was floated during Trump's first term but was reversed by the Biden administration; this iteration now has the force of a final rule, though it remains open to congressional challenge.