Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Media

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <CFR>8 CFR Parts 214, 248, and 274a</CFR> <DEPDOC>[DHS Docket No. ICEB-2025-0001]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1653-AA95</RIN> <SUBJECT>Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Media</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Unlike most nonimmigrant classifications, which are admitted for a fixed time period, aliens in the F (academic student), J (exchange visitor), and most I (representatives of foreign information media) classifications, with limited exceptions, are currently admitted into the United States for the period of time that they are complying with the terms and conditions of their nonimmigrant classification (“duration of status”). The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposes to amend its regulations by changing the admission period in the F, J, and I classifications from duration of status to an admission for a fixed time period. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received on or before September 29, 2025. <E T="03">Information collection comment period:</E> Comments on the information collection described in the <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act</E> section below must be received by October 27, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on the entirety of this rule, which must be identified by Docket No. ICEB-2025-0001, through the following method: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the website instructions to submit comments. Comments on the information collection may be submitted to the same docket as the NPRM or as described in the “submitting comments” section below. In addition, all comments on the information collection must include the OMB Control Number in the body of the comments. Comments submitted in a manner other than the Federal eRulemaking Portal, including emails or letters sent to the Department of Homeland Security (the Department or DHS), will not be considered comments, and will not receive a response from DHS. Please note that DHS cannot accept any hand delivered or couriered comments, nor any comments contained on any form of digital media storage devices, such as CDs, DVDs, and USB drives. If you cannot submit your material using <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> contact the person in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section of this document for alternate instructions. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Office of Regulatory Affairs and Policy, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, 500 12th Street SW, Washington, DC 20536. Telephone 202-732-6960 (not a toll-free number) (for questions only—no comments will be accepted at this phone number). <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation</HD> DHS encourages all interested parties to participate in this rulemaking by submitting data, views, comments, and arguments on all aspects of this notice of proposed rulemaking. Comments providing the most assistance to DHS will reference a specific portion of this rule, explain the reason for any recommended change and include the data, information, or authority that supports the recommended change. See the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section above for information on where to submit comments. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Submitting Comments</HD> All comments must be submitted in English, or an English translation must be provided. If you submit comments, you must include the DHS docket number for this rulemaking (ICEB-2025-0001), indicate the specific section of this document to which each comment applies, and provide a reason for each suggestion or recommendation. Include data, information, or the authority that supports the comment. Your comments must be submitted online by 11:59 p.m. of the last day of the comment period. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> To submit your comments online, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and insert “ICEB-2025-0001” in the “Search” box. Click on the rule that appears in the “Search Results.” Click on the “Comment” box under the name of the rule and input your comments in the text box provided. When you are satisfied with your comments, follow the prompts, and then click “Submit Comment.” <E T="03">Collection of information.</E> You must submit comments on the collection of information discussed in this notice of proposed rulemaking to either DHS's docket or the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA will have access to and view the comments submitted in the docket. OIRA submissions can also be sent using any of the following alternative methods: • <E T="03">Email (alternative):</E> <E T="03">dhsdeskofficer@omb.eop.gov</E> (include the docket number and “Attention: Desk Officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, DHS” in the subject line of the email). • <E T="03">Fax:</E> 202-395-6566. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, 725 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20503; Attention: Desk Officer, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, DHS. DHS will post your comments to the federal e-Rulemaking Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and will include any personal information you provide. Therefore, submitting this information makes it public. You may wish to consider limiting the amount of personal information that you provide in any voluntary public comment submission. DHS may withhold from public viewing information provided in comments that it determines is offensive. For more information, please read the “Privacy & Security Notice” via the link in the footer of <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> DHS will consider all comments and materials received during the comment period and may change this rule based on your comments. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Viewing Comments and Documents</HD> To view comments, as well as documents referenced in this preamble as being available in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and insert “ICEB-2025-0001” in the “Search” box. Next, click on the name of the rule, and then click “Browse Posted Comments.” Individuals without internet access can request alternate arrangements for viewing comments and documents related to this rulemaking (see the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section of this document). You may also sign up for email alerts on the online docket so that you will be notified when comments are posted, or a final rule is published. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Acronyms and Abbreviations </HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CBP U.S. Customs and Border Protection</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DOJ U.S. Department of Justice</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS U.S. Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">D/S Duration of Status</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DOS U.S. Department of State</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DSO Designated School Official</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> EAD Employment Authorization Document </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">ED U.S. Department of Education</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">EOS Extension of Stay</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">GAO U.S. Government Accountability Office</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">ICE U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">IIRIRA Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">INA Immigration and Nationality Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">INS Immigration and Naturalization Service</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">OPT Optional Practical Training</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">POE Port of Entry</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PRC People's Republic of China</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RFE Request for Evidence</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RO Responsible Officer</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SAR Special Administrative Region</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SEVIS Student and Exchange Visitor Information System</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SEVP Student and Exchange Visitor Program</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SSR Special Student Relief</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">STEM Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USCIS U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services </FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Purpose of the Proposed Regulatory Action</HD> Studying and participating in exchange visitor and academic programs in the United States offers aliens access to world-renowned, individualized instructional and educational programs. Similarly, the United States allows foreign news and media members access to the United States as part of their foreign employment. Millions of aliens have come to the United States on a temporary basis in the F (academic student), <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> J (exchange visitor), <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and I (representatives of foreign information media)  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> classifications. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> Unlike aliens in most nonimmigrant classifications who are admitted until a specific departure date, F, J, and I (except for some I aliens from the People's Republic of China (PRC)) nonimmigrants are admitted into the United States for an unspecified period of time to engage in activities authorized under their respective nonimmigrant classifications. This unspecified period of time is referred to as “dur ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 363k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━