The U.S. government on Wednesday, Aug. 28, unveiled a proposal to impose fixed visa time limits for international students, cultural exchange visitors, and members of the foreign media. The planned change would significantly tighten the current system.
Under the draft regulation, F visas for international students, J visas for exchange visitors, and I visas for foreign journalists would all shift from being valid for the duration of a program or employment to fixed terms. Student and exchange visas would be capped at four years, while media visas would be limited to 240 days — and for Chinese nationals, just 90 days. Holders could apply for extensions, but the process would create new bureaucratic hurdles.
The proposal came days after U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday (Aug. 26) while meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung in the Oval Office that Chinese students were welcome to attend American colleges, calling it “very important.” He noted that 600,000 Chinese studnets would be studying in the U.S. over the course of two years.
According to government data, there were roughly 1.6 million international students studying in the U.S. on F visas in 2024, alongside about 355,000 exchange visitors and 13,000 foreign journalists. Around 277,000 Chinese nationals were studying in the U.S. for the 2023-2024 academic year.
The Trump administration has moved to target the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) among Chinese citizens travelling to the U.S. On May 27, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that his department would move to revoke the visas of Chinese students with connections to the Communist Party, as well as those studying in fields sensitive for U.S. national security.
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Going foward, the State Department would revise its criteria for granting visas to all foreign nationals hoping to study in the U.S., Rubio said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in introducing the Aug. 28 proposal, argued that fixed visa time limits were necessary to better “monitor and oversee” those residing in the country on temporary visas.
Chinese officials immediately criticized the proposed rules. Foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Thursday that Beijing opposed “the discriminatory practices adopted by the U.S. against specific countries.”
Other critics said the measures could damage U.S. higher education and cultural exchange programs. NAFSA, an international educators’ group representing more than 4,300 institutions worldwide, opposed a similar proposal in 2020 and urged Washington to abandon the plan, saying it undermines the U.S.’s role as a global academic hub. That earlier version was introduced in the final months of the previous Republican administration and later withdrawn by President Joe Biden in 2021.
The new draft regulation will be subject to a 30-day public comment period before any decision is finalized.
Reuters contributed to this report.
