US newest on immigration: Shrink visa length for college kids, media | India Information
3 min learnNew DelhiUp to date: Jul 17, 2026 05:27 AM IST
In a transfer that’s anticipated to influence a lot of US-bound Indiansthe Donald Trump administration on Thursday moved to tighten the visa length for overseas college students, journalists and cultural trade guests.
In response to a US authorities discover, the brand new last rule from the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) creates a hard and fast time interval for F visas for worldwide studentsJ visas that permit guests on cultural trade programmes to work within the US, and I visas for members of the media. At present, these visas can be found during the programme or employment within the US.
Below the brand new rules, the coed and trade visa intervals could be not than 4 years. The visa for journalists — which at present can final years — could be for as much as 240 days or, within the case of Chinese language nationals, 90 days. The visa holders may apply for extensions, it stated.
The rules additionally prohibit graduate college students from altering their “instructional targets” at any level, or from transferring to a different faculty with out authorisation. They halve the period of time college students have to go away the US after finishing their diploma or coaching, from 60 to 30 days.
The brand new rules will come into impact 60 days from publication within the federal register, topic to Congressional evaluation.
Amongst Indian college students, the US is a favoured vacation spot for increased training. As of January 2025, there have been about 300,000 Indian college students within the US, principally in graduate (Masters) programmes in STEM (Science, Know-how, Engineering and Arithmetic) fields.
In response to the US State Division report, in 2024, 90,129 Indians obtained F (pupil) visas, 15,208 obtained J (trade customer) visas, and 426 obtained I (journalist) visas.
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After the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown final 12 months, the variety of F-1 visas issued to Indian college students fell sharply by 69 per cent in June-July 2025 as in comparison with the earlier 12 months, from 41,336 in June-July 2024 to 12,776 visas final 12 months.
In response to the DHS, there have been over 1.8 million pupil visa admissions in complete in 2024, a greater than 11% improve over the earlier 12 months. The US granted visas to greater than 500,000 trade guests and 37,300 members of the media in fiscal 12 months 2024, which started on October 1, 2023, it stated.
The numerous improve within the quantity of such guests “poses a problem to DHS’s skill to observe and oversee these non-immigrants whereas they’re in the USA,” it stated. DHS stated it has many examples of scholars and trade guests staying for many years on their visas.
Visa holders who wish to keep within the US past their fastened interval of admission might want to apply to DHS for an extension or achieve readmission by travelling overseas after which re-entering the US, DHS stated.
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The rule’s publication has been extensively anticipated in latest months, after DHS submitted it to the Workplace of Administration and Funds (OMB) in Might, which completed reviewing the rule in mid-June.
— With Reuters inputs from Washington DC
