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Trump Announces New Rules for International Students in the United States
Since President Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, he has imposed several new changes to international student requirements, including the H-1B visa fee, the termination of Duration of Status (D/S), and a newly proposed OPT administrative fee for F-1 non-immigrant students. President Trump is seeking to justify these changes by arguing for the need to prioritize and protect domestic U.S. workers from competition in the U.S. labor market and foreign wage competition.
On Sept. 19, 2025, the Trump administration issued a presidential proclamation, Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers, which prohibited the distribution of H-1B visas. H-1B visas are temporary, employer-sponsored work visas that allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialty positions that require at least a bachelor’s degree. These specialty roles must be in fields requiring specialized technical knowledge, such as engineering, science, and finance. Although President Trump restricted issuance, an exception still exists: a $100,000 fee levied on the employer for each new H-1B visa holder. However, students who change their status from F-1 to H-1B, will not be subject to such payments.
However, the fee and implementation were temporarily blocked when the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts Judge Leo T. Sorokin (D-MA) of the United States granted summary judgment for the State of California and 19 other states. As a result, the Court found the $100,000 fee to be an impermissible tax, as it was enacted without congressional deliberation. The judge found that the president’s proclamation exceeded the president’s statutory authority and implemented a fee that violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The federal government later filed a motion to stay a vacatur on July 24, 2026, but the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals denied it. The Court is now reviewing the case on appeal, and the appellees’ response brief is scheduled for Nov. 4, 2026.
Despite setbacks, President Trump has continued establishing new rules for international students. On July 17, 2026, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a change to the rules for foreign students studying in the United States. This change ended D/S, replacing it with a fixed period tied to the length of the student’s academic program, based on information listed in a student’s Form I-20. This change caps programs at four years and allows an additional 30 days for arrival and 30 days for departure.
Through this submitted rule, international students enrolled in certain academic programs would face limitations during their studies in the United States. First, students enrolled below the graduate level may not change their program of study during their first year unless the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), a U.S. government initiative managed by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), aimed at collecting, maintaining, analyzing, and providing information for foreign students who gain entry to the United States, approves it under special circumstances. Graduate students face similar restrictions and cannot change majors at any point during their program of study. Additionally, they are prohibited from enrolling in a program of study after completion. This includes registering at a lower educational level, such as moving from a master’s program to a bachelor’s program, or enrolling in a program at the same educational level.
Subsequently, on Oct. 7, 2026, the DHS proposed new administrative fees for F-1 nonimmigrant students seeking to participate in Optional Practical Training (OPT). This temporary employment authorization program is tied to their specific field of study. DHS designed this authorization to “reduce the flow of cheap labor into the United States and make it easier for American citizens to compete in the job market.” The proposed rule would require a $70,000 fee per F-1 nonimmigrant student for initial OPT and a $30,000 fee per F-1 nonimmigrant student for any subsequent training.
The main mission was to “require foreign students to justify their worth to employers. American workers should not have to compete against a program that has been turned into a pipeline for cheap foreign labor,” said a DHS Spokesperson. Under DHS requirements, F-1 nonimmigrant students must receive a recommendation from their designated school official (DSO) and apply for employment authorization with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Additionally, SEVP-certified schools must pay the fee before designated school officials recommend F-1 nonimmigrant students for training in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS). Finally, the proposed fees would not be tied to a specific employer, and the U.S. Treasury would receive the collected fees.
Consequently, these newly formulated rules had multiple consequences for international students. First, many would struggle to find jobs because they would face overly burdensome compliance costs from fees established by the Trump administration.
Moreover, these impositions reflect the policy of the Trump administration of being protective of its domestic workers, compared to previous administrations like the Nixon administration in 1974, where Congress under President Richard Nixon, amended the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a 1938 U.S. federal labor law that established basic employment standards, including minimum wage and overtime pay, which extended overtime protections to most domestic workers. However, this law simultaneously created a “companionship services exemption,” which excluded many homecare aides who cared for and provided services for the elderly, people with disabilities, and babysitters, as they did not have to be paid minimum wage or overtime. Through this comparison, Trump’s agenda can be seen as supporting young domestic workers.
After the Trump administration and DHS promulgated the rule, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV barred implementation of DHS’s major rule. In his 48-page order, he argued, along with NAFSA (Association of International Educators), one of the plaintiffs, that the government’s rationale for protecting national security and preventing fraud was “exceptionally weak.”
Judge Saylor then issued a preliminary injunction stopping DHS from implementing the rule and ordered it to wait for the Court to issue a final judgment. Though the lawsuit is still in its earliest stages, it highlights the substantial number of international students at U.S. universities, such as Boston University and Northeastern University, which report that 28.4% and 56.6%, respectively, of their graduate students are international.
President Trump enacted these rules to protect the American people from market competition, but the U.S. economy will likely face a stumbling block, as international students also play a major role in economic participation. By virtue of studying abroad and pursuing academia in the U.S., they make a meaningful contribution to the economy. Global students support local economies by paying for housing, day-to-day living expenses, and other costs.
Broadening the scope, the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) estimates that by chipping away at career pathways via the enforcement of hefty administrative procedural needs, it discourages post-graduate students from entering major high-skill, high-demand industries such as the field of STEM; it could reduce the U.S.’s GDP by around $200 billion to over $400 billion annually.
Overall, if several of these rules are implemented, American students will have a better chance of competing in the labor market. Still, international students will be disadvantaged, as these rules can impose a burdensome financial barrier. Moreover, prominent universities such as Boston University and Northeastern University, which have a large multinational student population, will feel a more severe impact on enrollment as transnational students face increasing disincentives to attend schools in the U.S. However, domestic students may face higher tuition as universities face a budget shortfall. Maybe, while the Trump administration may see these rules as protective, they could also backfire domestically.
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