Universities Sue Trump Administration Over 4-Year Student Visa Cap

The Trump administration has been sued by a coalition of higher education groups and unions over a new rule limiting student visas to four years.

The plaintiffs, which include the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, the American Federation of Teachers, NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts and several unions, argue that the final rule violates statutory and regulatory procedures.

They claim that the rule replaces a historically flexible federal approach to visas with "a rigid system of fixed admission periods arbitrarily capped at four years."

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security responded to the lawsuit, saying, "Where was the outrage when foreign nationals were abusing the system, violating the terms of their student visas, and making a mockery of our immigration laws?"

The rule requires students who want to stay past the four-year maximum to apply for extensions. Currently, international students are allowed to stay for the duration of their studies.

The government said that periodically assessing student visa stays would allow it to "better detect and mitigate the risks" of abuse. They also claimed that the open-ended nature of F and J visas permits fraud.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, 2,100 international students who entered the U.S. between 2000 and 2010 still held an active F visa as of April 2025. However, this is a tiny fraction of overall student visa holders, who numbered roughly 1.6 million in 2024.

The plaintiffs argue that the cap means international students "must apply for discretionary extensions of stay from an already overwhelmed federal immigration bureaucracy with no certainty that an extension necessary to complete the degree program they have invested in attaining will be granted."

The regulations also put restrictions on international students changing programs or transferring to other institutions. Additionally, they bar the students from beginning a new course of study at the same or lower level as a previously completed program.

The plaintiffs argue that this violates an existing immigration statute by denying visas to a category of students who are "expressly eligible for F student visas under the plain text" of the law.

They claim that the rule will discourage international students from enrolling at U.S. colleges because of "the intolerable prospect of losing lawful immigration status part way through their studies."

"Students will lose opportunities, schools will lose talent, and the public will lose billions of dollars of economic contributions supported by one of the United States' top exports: education," they said in their complaint.

The plaintiffs argue that the administration's rule violated regulatory procedures by failing to "adequately quantify and weigh both the costs and the benefits" of the final rule and to fully address the roughly 22,000 comments on the proposal that plaintiffs said voiced "near-universal opposition."

NAFSA CEO Fanta Aw said in a statement, "The rule will severely undermine the contributions international students make to U.S. campuses, economies, and national security. After carefully reviewing the final rule and the sweeping harm it will cause to our national interest, it is clear that litigation is warranted and necessary."

The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Massachusetts.