US eyes fixed visa term for foreign students: How it may put lakhs of Indians on tighter clock

In what could become a major roadblock for thousands of Indian students, the United States is weighing a proposal to fix the duration of stay for certain visa categories, including student visas, marking a possible end to the flexibility that international students have long relied on. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has submitted a proposal to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seeking to introduce fixed time limits on the stay of foreign students, exchange visitors, and representatives of international media, reports Times of India.

This development comes amid US President Donald Trump’s wider crackdown on immigration and growing surveillance of pro-Palestine student activists on American campuses. Trump, now back in office since January 2025, has made controlling student visa overstays and policing “anti-Semitic” content on campuses a priority, and this move dovetails with both.

What is the DHS proposal?

As per the Times of India, the Department of Homeland Security has submitted a proposal to the Office of Management and Budget that would impose “fixed periods of stay” on foreign students (F visas), exchange visitors (J visas), and foreign media representatives (I visas). The proposal is a revival of a similar move made during Trump’s first term in 2020, which was shelved after pushback and change in administration.

Currently, students are granted entry into the US under a flexible system known as “duration of status” (D/S), which allows them to stay as long as they continue to study full-time in an approved program. There is no fixed end date stamped on their entry, giving students the flexibility to extend their stay depending on academic requirements, internships, or optional practical training (OPT).

If the proposed rule is approved, that flexibility will be gone. Instead, students would receive a fixed visa expiration date and would need to apply for formal extensions – a process that immigration lawyers warn could become both costly and risky.

How would it affect Indian students?

Indian students are likely to be among the worst affected if this proposal becomes law. According to the latest Open Doors report, there were over 4.2 lakh Indian students in the US in 2024, making India the largest contributor of international students.

“Currently, international students can stay in the US as long as they are maintaining their full-time student status in approved programs. This is referred to as ‘duration of status’,” Rajiv S Khanna, managing attorney at Immigration.com, told TOI. “The Trump administration wants to change this to a predefined period of stay. With a fixed expiration date on their visa, international students would have to periodically apply for extensions.”

“This will create additional unnecessary delays, financial burden and uncertainty for students. Considering that an average extension of status request can take a few months to process, these types of restrictive regulations will increase the uncertainty international students would face,” he added.

Another concern is the potential criminalisation of technical visa overstays. According to Mitch Wexler, Senior Counsel at Fragomen, a global immigration law firm, the change could also impact how "unlawful presence" is calculated.

“Currently, international students accrue unlawful presence only after US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes a formal finding or an immigration judge orders the individual to be excluded, deported or removed. This could change and unlawful presence could accrue after the last date of their finite authorised stay, except in a narrow set of circumstances,” he told TOI.

This means that students who simply miss filing an extension on time could be counted as “unlawfully present” in the US – a label that could trigger serious immigration consequences including bans from re-entry.

Is the crackdown justified?

The Trump administration has argued that the change is needed to prevent student visa overstays, a concern that has often been cited in Republican immigration debates. However, data tells a different story. The student and exchange visitor visa overstay rate was just 3.6% in 2023, according to government figures cited by TOI.

Critics argue that the proposal is more about optics and control than addressing a real issue.

The bigger crackdown: Targeting universities and students

The visa change is just one part of a broader, and arguably chilling, shift in US immigration and civil rights policies under Trump’s second term. The administration has openly cracked down on universities accused of tolerating “anti-Semitic” activity and has targeted pro-Palestine student protests across major campuses.

The White House has frozen $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard University, accusing the institution of not protecting Jewish students during recent protests. As per The New York Times, the administration has threatened to cap the number of international students Harvard can admit until it complies with federal demands.

In April, the DHS said it would begin screening the social media accounts of immigrants, including students, to detect “anti-Semitic activity.” Applicants for student visas are now being told to change their social media privacy settings to ‘public’, raising serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.