Padilla, Durbin, Blumenthal, Whitehouse, Jayapal, Raskin Introduce Resolution to Block Trump Administration Rule Restricting International Students, Exchange Visitors, and Foreign Journalists

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) joint resolution of disapproval to block a regulation, entitled “ 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 ,” which changes how international students, exchange visitors, and foreign journalists maintain their immigration status. U.S. Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.-07) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.-08) are leading the House companion. For more than 40 years, F-1 visa students, J-1 visa exchange visitors, and I visa international journalists have been permitted to remain in the U.S. for as long as they engage in the activity that qualifies them for the visa, known as “duration of status.” However, on July 17, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a final rule that eliminates duration of status and requires recipients of F-1 student visas and J-1 exchange visas to enter the U.S. for a fixed admission period capped at a maximum of four years. Similarly, recipients of I visas would be admitted for the length of their project in the U.S. or a maximum of 240 days. The rule also includes significant limitations on transfers and changes of educational objectives for student visa recipients. Educational institutions, labor unions, and medical associations have raised serious concerns about this rule’s impacts on the nation’s ability to attract the best and brightest students to U.S. universities and to retain doctors in American communities that desperately need them. The rule was scheduled to go into effect on September 15 but is currently paused by court order. “International students deserve fair opportunities to receive an education in the United States. Students, exchange visitors, and foreign members of the media should never have to live in fear of the Administration’s unprecedented attacks on legal immigration,” said Senator Padilla . “Diversity is our country’s strength, and international students and exchange visitors support American innovation, job growth, higher education, and global competitiveness. We have a responsibility to protect these visa holders, including international students who contribute to the culture of American universities and eventually to our nation’s economy.” This regulation will have adverse impacts on foreign students, international medical school graduates (residents), and foreign members of the media. The federal government last implemented a fixed period of admission for these visa categories in the 1970s, and the changes resulted in significant backlogs. This new regulation will likely yield the same result, as the most recent available data shows the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) processing backlog at 12 million cases. Universities have predicted significant hardships for doctorate students, who can often take as long as seven years to complete their programs. In addition, universities have expressed concerns that the strict regulation will prevent graduate students from changing their educational objective and prevent undergraduate students, including athletes, from transferring to another university in their first year of education or changing their majors. Medical associations have similarly raised concerns about the impacts of the rule on medical residents. This rule is the most recent in a series of attempts by the Trump Administration to stop legal immigration to the United States. “This proposed rule is just another part of the Donald Trump-Stephen Miller mass deportation agenda. They want to make the immigration process so difficult, so cumbersome, and so onerous that legal immigrants decide to leave the U.S. or never come here at all—which will result in the loss of talented, bright individuals who make America better,” said Senator Durbin . “Our nation is already confronting a serious health workforce shortage. Now is not the time to make it even more difficult for health care professionals to care for our most vulnerable communities. I appreciate my Democratic colleagues in joining me on this important measure and encourage members on both sides of the aisle to support it.” “Rhode Island’s institutions of higher education help power the Ocean State’s economic competitiveness,” said Senator Whitehouse . “International students and medical residents drive innovation, contribute to cutting-edge research, and spend big not only on tuition, but also at local restaurants and businesses.  This Trump administration rule punishes international students, young doctors, and foreign journalists as well as local small businesses and universities as part of their extreme anti-immigration agenda.” “International students make our institutions of higher learning better for all students and create pipelines to ensure the best and brightest lend their talents to strengthen our economy and American innovation. We should be welcoming students, not wrapping the processes to obtain visas in layers of red tape. This has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with Trump and Stephen Miller’s plan to prevent all forms of legal immigration. I first came to this country on a student visa and understand deeply just how important these visas are,” said Representative Jayapal . “America has always benefited from attracting brilliant students, researchers, doctors and journalists from around the world. The Trump Administration wants to obstruct that path with bureaucratic hurdles and quicksand designed to make legal immigration harder. This senseless rule will drive away talented people who come here to study, practice medicine, do research and contribute to our communities. It harms the American economy and American innovation and makes all of us worse off,” said Representative Raskin . In addition to Padilla, Durbin, Blumenthal, and Whitehouse, the CRA resolution was cosponsored by U.S. Senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Angus King (I-Maine), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). The CRA resolution of disapproval is endorsed by AAMC – Association of American Medical Colleges, AIRC: The Association of International Enrollment Management, Alliance for International Exchange, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, American College of Radiology, American Council on Education, American Gastroenterological Association, American Immigration Lawyers Association, American Osteopathic Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Society of Nephrology, American Society of Neuroradiology, Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment, Association of American Universities, Association of Independent California Colleges & Universities, Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, Cornell University, Council of Graduate Schools, Federation of Independent Illinois Colleges and Universities, Global Detroit; Illinois State University; Illinois Tech; International Educators of Illinois; Miles for Migraine; NAFSA: Association of International Educators; National Association of Independent Colleges & Universities (NAICU); Northern Illinois University, Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration; Shorelight, LLC, Third Way, University of California –  Berkeley, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California System, University of California-San Diego, University of California-Davis; University of California – Los Angeles; University of California- San Francisco; University of California – Santa Cruz, University of Illinois System, and U.S. For Success Coalition. Last month, Padilla led 29 Senate colleagues in expressing concern about the unavailability of student and exchange visitor visa appointments in time for the start of the academic year and demanding answers regarding delays in processing of these applications at U.S. embassies and consulates. Last year, Padilla joined 34 Democrats in pressing the Trump Administration to reconsider decisions to revoke student visas. Padilla and Senator Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.) then condemned the Trump Administration’s harmful revocations of international student visas, underscoring the lack of due process regarding these revocations and the chilling effect of these actions in suppressing freedom of thought and expression. Bill text is available here . ###