WASHINGTON (Reuters)-The Trump government intends to restrict the duration of visas for students, cultural exchange visitors and press members, according to a government regulation proposal published on Wednesday, part of a broader repression policy to legal immigration.
President Donald Trump, a Republican, began a wide repression of immigration after taking office in January. The latest measure should offer new obstacles to international students, exchange workers, and foreign journalists who will have to request the extent of their stay in the US rather than maintaining a more flexible legal status.
The regulatory proposal creates a fixed period for F Visas F for international students, seeing that allows visitors in cultural exchange programs to work in the US and visas I for members of the press. Currently, these visas are available for the duration of the US program or employment.
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There were about 1.6 million international students with V Visas in the US in 2024, according to US government data. The US granted views to about 355,000 exchange visitors and 13,000 press members in the 2024 fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2023.
The Trump administration said in the regulatory proposal that change is necessary to better “monitor and supervise” the visa carriers while in the US.
The public will have 30 days to give an opinion on the measure, similar to a proposal presented in 2020 at the end of Trump’s first term.
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NAFSA, a non -profit organization that represents international educators in more than 4,300 institutions worldwide, opposed the 2020 proposal and asked the Trump government to discard it. Former President Joe Biden’s democratic government had withdrawn the proposal in 2021.
The Trump administration has increased scrutiny on legal immigration, revoking visas and green cards from college students for their ideological opinions and removing the legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants.
In a memorandum of 22 August, US citizenship and immigration service said it should resume long-dormant visits to the citizenship applicants’ neighborhoods to verify what it called residence, moral character and commitment to US ideals.
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(TED Hesson Report)
