Trump administration proposes ending 60-day grace period after job loss for H-1B, other visa holders

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are preparing to propose a rule that would eliminate an existing grace period for visa holders who can't find a job, according to an unpublished document posted to the Federal Register.

Under current immigration laws, holders of certain visas, particularly H-1B visas, which are non-immigration visas that allow employers to sponsor skilled workers with Bachelor's degrees or higher, get a 60-day grace period to find a new job if they lose the employment tied to their visa.

The new rule proposal would eliminate that grace period, according to the document.

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"This proposal restores a direct relationship between an alien's nonimmigrant status and the specific employment or activity that formed the basis of his or her admission or grant of status in the United States and reduces administrative burden," the document reads.

A noncitizen would have to immediately leave the U.S. if no longer working for an employer linked to a visa status if the rule were to be implemented.

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"DHS believes that restoring the expectation that aliens depart the United States upon cessation of the employment or activity upon which the alien's status was based, would better promote program integrity and be more consistent with statutory purpose," the rule proposal reads.

The agency also claimed that eliminating the grace period would greatly reduce administrative burden "as the process of determining when the up to 60-day grace period may apply, reviewing the information submitted, and determining whether to shorten or eliminate the grace period may be time consuming and complex for the agency and confusing or unpredictable for the petitioner, alien and the alien's dependents."

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Before 2017, the document states, there was no 60-day grace period. But in 2016, DHS established the grace period in a rule that came into effec Jan. 17, 2017, three days before President Donald Trump first took office.

DHS also wrote that the rule's elimination would favor U.S. workers because employers who previously filled jobs with foreign workers would have less foreign-born labor to choose from.

"DHS assumes that almost all these entities would offer the same jobs to equally qualified U.S. workers, go through the I-129 petition process to sponsor nonimmigrant workers, or reassign the work to other current employees. DHS acknowledges that some of these petitioners may incur a temporary loss of productivity due to labor turnover," the rule proposal reads.

The unpublished rule is scheduled to publish Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, according to the Federal Register. It will then be subject to a two-month period of public comment before becoming law.

Fox News Digital contacted DHS and the White House for further comment.