Public Charge Rules Take Effect as States Sue to Stop Them September 18 is here, and the new public charge rules are live. Immigration officers now have broader discretion to consider a green card applicant's use of means-tested public benefits, including Medicaid, SNAP, CHIP, and housing assistance, as part of a case-by-case review. Using a benefit doesn't automatically trigger a denial, but it becomes a factor that officers can weigh alongside income, employment, health, and other circumstances. Almost immediately, a coalition of states, cities, and counties filed suit arguing the rule exceeds DHS's authority and grants officers too much unchecked discretion. The lawsuits didn't stop the rule from taking effect, so the new standard is operational while the legal fights play out. The PERM Takeaway: This is the rule we've been counting down to all summer, and it's now the reality for every green card applicant filing Form I-485. For PERM employers, the connection is direct: your sponsored employee's adjustment of status application will be evaluated under these expanded criteria. Employers who provide strong benefits packages, health insurance, and competitive salaries are handing their workers a significant advantage in the public charge assessment. Those factors weigh positively and can offset other concerns an officer might raise. If your company covers health insurance for sponsored employees, document that thoroughly in the filing. If your employee's salary sits well above the poverty guidelines, make that obvious in the supporting materials. The new I-485 form (also mandatory as of today, with no grace period) includes an updated public charge section with new questions and a simplified benefits disclosure table. Counsel should have prepped these filings weeks ago. If they haven't, the first priority this morning is making sure every pending case is built on the correct form with complete public charge documentation. Judge Blocks Duration of Status Rule, Students Keep Current System A federal judge has blocked the DHS rule that would have ended "duration of status" for F-1 students, J-1 exchange visitors, and I visa holders. The rule was set to take effect September 15 and would have replaced the current system with fixed four-year admission periods and a shortened 30-day grace period for F-1 graduates. The preliminary injunction keeps the existing framework in place, including the full 60-day post-completion grace period, while the legal challenge continues. The PERM Takeaway: This is the outcome the university coalition sued for, and it's a significant relief for employers who recruit from campus pipelines. The four-year cap and shortened grace period would have created real disruption for PhD candidates, medical trainees, and other students in longer programs. With the current system preserved (for now), students can continue their programs without worrying about mid-degree extension applications, and graduates retain the full 60-day window to transition to OPT and connect with employers. That said, the injunction is preliminary, and the underlying rule hasn't been struck down permanently. Employers should use this reprieve to lock in relationships with prospective hires on campus and accelerate conversations about post-graduation employment and sponsorship. The rule could come back, and the employers who built their pipeline during the pause will be better positioned than those who assumed the status quo would hold forever. U.S. Announces Visa Restrictions Targeting Some South Africans The State Department announced new visa restrictions targeting certain South African nationals over the country's land and race-related policies. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the restrictions may apply to individuals the U.S. determines are responsible for policies enabling uncompensated land seizures, racial discrimination, or incitement of violence against minority groups. No individuals were named. South Africa pushed back, calling the U.S. characterization inaccurate and saying its policies are designed to address inequalities from the apartheid era. The PERM Takeaway: Targeted visa restrictions based on a country's domestic policies create unpredictable exposure for employers sponsoring workers from affected countries. While these restrictions appear aimed at government-connected individuals rather than the general workforce, the lack of named individuals and the broad language ("responsible for policies") creates ambiguity about who might be affected. Employers with South African nationals in their sponsorship pipeline should flag this development with counsel and ensure their employees understand the current landscape. More broadly, country-specific restrictions that can be announced without warning remind every PERM employer that consular processing carries geopolitical risk. When adjustment of status within the U.S. is available as an alternative to sending an employee abroad for a visa interview, the stability of that path looks increasingly attractive. Visa Services Remain Uneven Across U.S. Embassies Worldwide U.S. embassies and consulates are processing visas globally, but appointment availability, wait times, and service levels continue to vary widely by location. Boundless' updated country-by-country tracker covers current operations, including countries where applicants are being redirected to regional posts. It also details the visa issuance restrictions affecting nationals of 39 countries under Presidential Proclamation 10998, which took effect January 1, 2026. The PERM Takeaway: Uneven consular operations have been a running theme all year, and employers need to treat consular post selection as a strategic decision rather than an afterthought. If your sponsored employee's immigrant visa interview is scheduled at a post with long wait times or limited services, exploring whether a transfer to a faster post is possible could save months. The 39-country visa restriction under Proclamation 10998 adds another layer: employers with sponsored workers who are nationals of affected countries should verify with counsel whether those restrictions impact their specific visa category. Keeping tabs on the Boundless tracker or a similar resource should be part of your ongoing immigration workflow, not something you check only when a problem surfaces. Stay sharp, stay compliant, and we'll see you next week.

Boundless restarted its Office Hours series with an open question session built entirely around what people actually ask. Host Lindsay Vadada collected questions at registration, ran a live queue during the session, and handed the floor to Deana Benjamin, an immigration attorney with more than twenty years in family and business matters who has worked with Boundless for over eight years. The format produces something a polished presentation rarely does. Real applicants asked about age-out deadlines for a child turning 21, about travel on a conditional green card, about whether a tourist visa still works while a spousal case sits pending. Benjamin answered in plain language and repeatedly declined to give case-specific advice, which is itself instructive about where general guidance ends. One theme ran under every answer. The margin for error on a filing has narrowed sharply, and the government is no longer obligated to tell you what you left out. Here is what carried the most value from the session. The RFE Memo Removed the Safety Net This is the headline item and Benjamin flagged it as a top current question. The traditional sequence was forgiving. You filed, you missed something, USCIS sent a request for evidence, and you supplied what was missing inside the window they gave you. An incomplete filing cost time rather than the case. Under the new memo, USCIS is saying it does not have to send that request. The agency can deny outright. Benjamin's conclusion follows directly from the change: filing a complete and accurate application matters more now than it ever has. For applicants, the practical translation is that the first submission is effectively the only submission. Every gap is now a live risk to the case rather than a scheduling inconvenience. PERM TAKEAWAY: The RFE memo reaches employment-based filings too. Any gap in a sponsorship package is now a denial risk rather than a delay, which raises the value of complete recruitment documentation and clean audit-ready files from the outset. What Processing Timelines Actually Look Like Right Now Benjamin was candid that timelines have become difficult to predict under the current administration, and she declined to promise anything definitive for an individual case. She did give working numbers, which is more than most sessions offer. K-1 fiance visa: roughly one year to a year and a half. Consular green card processing: roughly a year and a half to two years, and she later put most current cases at about two years start to finish. Adjustment of status for people already in the US: anywhere from four to twelve months. Removal of conditions: currently slow enough that cases often stay pending past the point the applicant becomes eligible for citizenship. She noted these timelines were shorter before and said she is hopeful they improve. Anyone setting client or family expectations right now should be quoting the longer end. K-1 or Consular: The Choice Depends on Status More Than Preference Benjamin laid out the decision cleanly. A green card holder sponsoring a spouse has only the consular route available. A couple already married is also looking at the consular green card process. The real choice belongs to someone unmarried and engaged to a US citizen. For that person, the tradeoff is speed against steps. The K-1 is currently the faster way into the country, but arrival starts a second phase of work inside the US. The consular green card route means marrying first and waiting longer, with fewer moving parts after entry. One timing trap deserves attention. A child included on a K-2 has to enter the US in that status before turning 21, and the marriage has to happen within 90 days. Miss the window and that child likely needs an independent path. Benjamin's advice for families with older children was to map the timing with an attorney before filing anything. Evidence of Relationship Is a Totality Question Benjamin described what USCIS is looking for as proof of a commingled life. A lease or mortgage, joint bank accounts, utilities in both names, joint tax filings, even a shared Costco membership. More evidence is better, and photographs spanning the length of the relationship help tell the story rather than assert it. Her framing of why this resists a checklist is the useful part. A couple in their early twenties will not produce the same evidence as a couple in their sixties, and USCIS evaluates the totality of what you submit against your specific circumstances. Boundless supplies a photo-and-caption template for exactly this purpose, which Benjamin described as narrating the relationship for the officer reviewing it. She added a document hygiene tip that applies to anyone with an immigration history. Keep every document you file with the government and every document you receive back from it, stored securely and indefinitely. Filings generally go in as copies while interviews require originals, and a document from a case closed years ago has a way of becoming relevant again. PERM TAKEAWAY: The retention habit runs both directions. Employers should keep recruitment documentation and audit files intact and organized long after a certification is approved, because the request to produce them rarely arrives on a convenient schedule. Every Green Card Starts With a Sponsor Asked the broadest possible question about how someone gets a green card, Benjamin reframed it as a sponsorship question. The overwhelming majority of paths require someone to sponsor you, whether that is an employer or a family member including a spouse. The exceptions are narrow: the diversity visa lottery, which she compared to winning an actual lottery, along with a small set of self-sponsored extraordinary ability and business categories. Her suggested starting point for anyone orienting themselves is a pair of questions. Who is sponsoring me, and what makes me eligible to proceed? PERM TAKEAWAY: Employer sponsorship remains one of the two dominant routes to permanent residence. For employers, that positions the PERM process as a workforce retention tool rather than a compliance chore, particularly for employees whose family-based options do not exist. Removal of Conditions: A Strong Package Can Skip the Second Interview Marriages under two years old at approval produce a two-year conditional green card. Benjamin was firm that this is a real green card carrying the same rights, including the ability to travel with a valid passport. The condition is the filing that comes due in the 90-day window before it expires. The incentive she highlighted is worth knowing in advance. A well-documented I-751 with updated joint accounts, tax filings and photographs covering the two-year span will typically clear without another interview. A thin one invites USCIS to schedule the couple for a second appearance. The quality of the package determines whether you sit across from an officer again. Two related points came out of the live questions. The receipt notice for a pending I-751 extends status for 48 months and can be used for travel. And a pending removal of conditions does not block a naturalization filing once you are otherwise eligible. Benjamin noted that filing for citizenship sometimes prompts USCIS to finally adjudicate the I-751 sitting in the queue. Myths Benjamin Wanted Retired Paying to expedite works. On the family side, expedite requests are rarely granted and require strong supporting evidence. Most applicants are subject to whatever the posted processing times happen to be. A criminal record is an automatic disqualification. Benjamin was clear that outcome depends on the nature and the timing of the history, and that it is not an automatic bar. It is, however, a situation that warrants real legal advice rather than a guess. You must hire an attorney to attend the interview. For a straightforward case, she said counsel at the interview is often unnecessary. Preparation is the part that is never optional, meaning knowing the documents to bring and being ready for the officer's questions. The Optional Filings People Assume Are Mandatory A live question about work and travel permits with an I-485 produced a genuinely money-saving answer. The employment authorization document and the advance parole travel document are optional companion filings with their own government fees. Plenty of people file them because they want to work or travel while the case is pending, and plenty of people do not need to. Benjamin flagged a current wrinkle. USCIS is moving some cases to interview quickly enough that the travel document never arrives before the case resolves, which makes the fee a poor investment for someone who was not planning to leave the country. She also observed that travel may not be advisable for everyone under present conditions, which turns the decision into a straightforward cost question for a subset of applicants. Quote Highlight The standout piece of advice from the session came out of the RFE discussion, and it is the sentence to carry into every filing decision made this year: It's more important than ever to file a complete and accurate application. DEANA BENJAMIN, ESQ. | BOUNDLESS OFFICE HOURS It resonates because of what sits behind it. An agency that can deny without asking has shifted the entire burden of completeness onto the person filing. The old strategy of submitting what you have and responding to whatever the government asks for has stopped being a strategy. Benjamin's answers throughout the session circled back to the same instruction from different angles: build the strongest version of the package the first time, because there may be no invitation to fix it. Why This Episode Is a Must-Listen Office Hours earns your time because it is organized around the questions people actually submitted rather than the topics a marketing team selected. The result is unusually practical. Concrete timeline ranges, a clear K-1 versus consular decision framework, the 48-month travel extension on a pending I-751, and the reminder that work and travel permits are optional filings all arrived inside thirty-five minutes. What makes it worth passing along: The RFE memo is the most consequential procedural change most applicants have not heard about, and it reframes how every filing decision should be made from here forward. The evidence discussion gives people a usable standard for a requirement that looks subjective from the outside, including why the right evidence differs by couple. For anyone working in or around immigration, the session is also a useful reminder of how much basic uncertainty applicants are carrying. The questions were not exotic. People wanted to know whether they could travel, whether a birthday would cost their child a place in the case, whether a visa they already hold still works. Clear answers to ordinary questions have real value right now. Note that the session was general information rather than legal advice, and Benjamin consistently redirected case-specific questions to individual consultations. Watch the Boundless Office Hours session with host Lindsay Vadada and immigration attorney Deana Benjamin, Esq., then subscribe so the next one reaches you automatically. Boundless reopened this series after a long pause and is shaping upcoming sessions around attendee feedback, so the topics you request are the topics that get covered. Subscribe, and send this to the person in your network who is about to file something important.

Judy Hinh Wong practices business immigration in the Bay Area for corporate clients that run from small startups up to mid-size technology companies. Her work covers employment-based nonimmigrant and immigrant filings, PERM, the H, L and O categories, and the talent mobility and risk management conversations underneath all of it. She is past chair of AILA NorCal and sits on the planning committee for this year's California Chapters Conference. On Episode 493 of the Immigration Lawyers Toolbox podcast, host John Kasravi asks her what she is seeing on the ground. Her answers deal with what the policy announcements do to cases already in motion. Layoffs are breaking PERM filings. Clients who did everything correctly still cannot be told with any confidence that they are safe. Here is what stood out from the conversation, and why it matters to anyone advising employers or sponsored workers. Public Charge Scrutiny Has Reached Employment-Based Cases The affidavit of support and public charge guidance is written broadly enough to reach nearly every applicant, so employment-based practitioners cannot treat it as somebody else's problem. Wong calls the line of questioning invasive and places it inside the wider pattern she sees from the government right now: heavier scrutiny, more enforcement, and more compliance burden landing on categories that used to move on documentation alone. Her tech-sector clients feel the exposure less acutely. They have offer letters and salary histories, so the benefits question is not where their risk concentrates. Wong is clear that this does not make it a non-issue. It means another file to build and another place where an adjudicator can decide the record looks thin. PERM TAKEAWAY: Public charge now reaches the adjustment stage of PERM-based green cards. Update intake questionnaires and client FAQs before an RFE forces the conversation. The Travel and Adjustment Question Nobody Can Answer Cleanly Kasravi raises the adjustment of status guidance that has firms second-guessing travel advice for people who followed every rule. Clients on H-1B and L-1 status have long had flexibility on intent. The signals now conflict, the government stepped back from its own statement inside a single day, and practitioners are being nudged toward consular processing for employees who have work to do and no appetite for getting stuck abroad. Kasravi says he is prepping clients on TN and other categories with the same uncomfortable question: what do you want us to do here? His approvals have held so far. The advice is much harder to give than it was a year ago. Wong's read on the human cost is the strongest moment in the episode. The lack of clarity, combined with reports of people with pending cases being stopped at airports, sends clients a message whether or not anyone intended to send it. They learn they should never feel settled. Reductions in Force Are Breaking PERM Cases Mid-Process Asked what is happening in the tech sector right now, Wong answers with layoffs. Reductions in force are landing directly on the PERM program. A role gets eliminated or restructured, and the labor certification built around it stops holding. The workers caught in the middle frequently have the least runway, including people approaching their H-1B maximum with no straight path forward. What follows is triage. Wong checks whether the employee can proceed with the PERM process at all, then whether an EB-2 NIW or an EB-1 filing is realistic on the record they have. Kasravi compares it to practicing medicine and looking down the shelf for something that might work. Sometimes the shelf is empty. Wong is direct about how that conversation goes with someone who has been in the country for years, has family here, and has invested everything in a process that a corporate restructuring just ended. PERM TAKEAWAY: Workforce planning decisions are sponsorship decisions. Bring counsel in before the RIF list is final, because the PERM consequences are often fixable at the planning stage and rarely fixable afterward. The Truth About EB-1A, from Someone Adjudications Actually Reach Inquiries are up across O-1, EB-1, EB-2 and NIW as people hunt for alternatives to a crowded H-1B pathway. Scrutiny rose along with the volume. Wong reports heavier RFE activity, more notices of intent to deny, and denial rates well above what practitioners were seeing before. Kasravi names the marketing problem directly. LinkedIn is full of EB-1A content, much of it from people who are not lawyers, presenting extraordinary ability as a checklist you can complete with the right packaging. The category is adjudicated on a totality of the circumstances standard, which does not reduce to a checklist. Wong explains why the myth survives anyway. Adjudications are inconsistent. A weak case clears at one service center while a stronger one gets denied somewhere else. The person with the surprise approval tells friends what they did, the anecdote turns into advice, and the advice turns into a product. Her assessment of those approvals is that the applicant got lucky. Saying so out loud means telling someone they are not extraordinary, which is a hard thing to say to a person who wants to believe otherwise. PERM TAKEAWAY: When PERM stalls, EB-1A and NIW are the first alternatives a client will have heard about, usually from a LinkedIn post. Set expectations on evidence and current denial rates at the first conversation. Quote Highlight On what the current climate does to people who are lawfully in status and waiting on a pending case: It creates this uncertainty of whether they feel safe anymore in their status. JUDY HEN WONG, ESQ. | EPISODE 493 Wong follows it with an observation that reframes the conversation. The uncertainty teaches people that they should never feel safe, and carrying that is hard on a human level. For anyone drafting client communications right now, the line is a useful check on tone. For many of the people reading those updates, the question underneath a policy change is whether their life here holds. USCIS Went Quiet. CBP Did Not. CBP remains one of the few agencies still communicating with AILA chapter liaisons, while USCIS engagement has fallen off this time around. Kasravi notes that the pattern inverted from the previous administration, when USCIS stayed at the table and CBP was the reluctant partner. Both of them land on why it matters. Liaison meetings surface recurring problems early and let chapters flag friction that the agencies themselves benefit from fixing. When that channel closes, everyone operates with less information, the agency included. How to Actually Use an AILA Membership Wong's route into chapter leadership is worth copying. She joined AILA NorCal because she did not know how to use the organization and wanted to learn from practitioners who did. Her own framing is that she was nowhere near the full value of her membership. A member pointed her toward the advisory council. She started as media coordinator, served a couple of years, then ran for the board and moved through treasurer, secretary and vice chair before becoming chair. Former chair Tammy later invited her onto the California Chapters Conference planning committee, where Wong had already spoken on the PERM panel the year before. She also clarifies the structure, which differs by chapter. NorCal runs an executive board of officers plus a past chair, with an advisory council of roughly forty-five to fifty people underneath it. That group holds the agency liaison roles covering USCIS, CBP and EOIR, along with coordinator roles for new member outreach, media and events. Southern California uses liaison as the umbrella term where NorCal says advisory member. California Chapters Conference: November 5 to 7, San Francisco The episode closes on the conference Wong is helping plan. The committee submitted its program to national in late summer, and the schedule runs Thursday through Saturday in San Francisco. A welcome event is planned for Thursday evening with a keynote speaker the committee is keeping under wraps, and sessions begin on the first day. Programming splits into two main tracks, one for business immigration and one for removal and family practice. Kasravi makes the case for attending even if you practice nowhere near California. The state works as a microcosm of the national caseload, running from H-2A agricultural work through asylum, so the issues on the California agenda tend to reach everyone else eventually. Why This Episode Is a Must-Listen Episode 493 is worth twenty minutes because Wong describes the practice as it exists on an ordinary Tuesday, with a client on the phone whose PERM just evaporated in a reorganization and no comfortable answer available. Two things make it useful for anyone advising employers or sponsored workers: It connects layoffs to immigration consequences in a way most workforce planning conversations still miss, which makes it directly relevant to HR, mobility and in-house teams making headcount decisions this quarter. It supplies an evidence-based counterweight to the EB-1A content flooding professional feeds, from a practitioner watching real adjudications rather than selling a course. For recruiters, HR leaders and in-house counsel, immigration strategy has become inseparable from workforce strategy. Decisions about headcount and role definitions carry sponsorship consequences that surface months later, usually at the worst possible moment. This episode will change how you sequence those conversations. Listen to Episode 493 of the Immigration Lawyers Toolbox podcast with host John Kasravi and guest Judy Hinh Wong, Esq., then subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so the next episode lands automatically. Every week brings practitioner conversations, agency intelligence and real-world strategy from attorneys handling these cases daily. Each episode promises to enrich your understanding and keep you informed about the ever-evolving landscape of immigration policies. Subscribe, and share this with the colleague who needs it. Questions welcome at the California Chapters Conference in San Francisco, November 5 to 7.

DHS Proposes Eliminating the 60-Day Grace Period for Laid-Off Workers The proposal we flagged last week is now public. DHS has officially proposed eliminating the 60-day grace period that allows employment-based visa holders to stay in the U.S. after losing their job. The rule would affect workers in E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1, and TN status, along with their dependents. Under the proposal, when your employment ends, so does your authorized presence. No 60-day buffer to find a new sponsor. No window to file a change of status. You'd be expected to leave immediately unless you have another legal basis to remain. The rule hasn't taken effect yet, but now we can see exactly how broad it is. The PERM Takeaway: This proposal touches nearly every visa category that feeds into the PERM pipeline. If it goes through, the stakes of employment-based sponsorship change fundamentally. Right now, an H-1B worker who gets laid off has two months to find a new employer willing to sponsor a transfer. That window has saved thousands of workers from having to uproot their lives overnight. Remove it, and every job loss becomes an immediate deportation trigger. For PERM employers, the implications run in both directions. On one hand, sponsored employees become even more dependent on their current employer, which could reduce turnover. On the other hand, the pressure and anxiety of knowing there's no safety net could push talented workers to abandon the U.S. entirely in favor of countries with more stable immigration systems. Employers should be preparing for both outcomes. If you're mid-PERM with an employee, reinforce your commitment to the process. And if you're an employer who has been slow to start sponsorship for valued workers, this proposal is the clearest possible signal that waiting creates risk for everyone involved. Immigrant Visa Processing Restarts in Hungary and Poland The State Department has resumed immigrant visa processing in Hungary and Poland after a broader overseas pause tied to new public charge screening training for consular officers. Processing at other embassies and consulates remains halted for now, and the department hasn't announced when the pause will lift globally. But the restart in two countries is the first real sign that the logjam may be starting to break. The PERM Takeaway: For PERM employers with sponsored workers awaiting immigrant visa interviews overseas, this partial restart matters. If your employee's consular interview is scheduled in Hungary or Poland, that case can move forward. Everyone else is still waiting. The underlying cause of the pause, training on the new public charge requirements that take effect September 18, suggests that broader processing will resume once officers at other posts complete the same training. Employers should be checking with counsel on which consular posts are operational and adjusting their processing strategies accordingly. If you have the option to request a specific consular post for an employee's interview, a post that's already cleared the training hurdle and resumed processing could save weeks or months of waiting compared to one that's still dark. This is the kind of logistical detail that separates a smooth green card case from one stuck in unnecessary limbo. Salvadorans Keep TPS Protections, But No One Knows For How Long The administration has decided to let approximately 170,000 Salvadorans maintain their TPS protections while it considers the future of the designation. Beneficiaries can continue living and working in the U.S. for now. The key word, as always with TPS, is "for now." The administration hasn't set a timeline for a final decision, which means 170,000 people and the employers who depend on them are operating without a clear horizon . The PERM Takeaway: We've written some version of this paragraph nearly every week this year. TPS gets extended or preserved. Employers breathe a sigh of relief. And then nothing changes structurally. Salvadorans have held TPS since 2001. Twenty-five years of temporary protection is a contradiction in terms, and the workforce built around that protection is deeply embedded in American industries, particularly construction, hospitality, and food processing. Employers with Salvadoran TPS holders on their teams have been given yet another window. Use it. Sit down with counsel and evaluate which employees could realistically be sponsored through PERM. The labor certification process takes time, and starting during a period of stability is always better than scrambling after a termination announcement. If your company has TPS-dependent workers and no sponsorship plan in place after 25 years of extensions, this week is as good a time as any to change that. Immigration Attorney Breaks Down Marriage Green Card Process In a recent Boundless webinar, an immigration attorney tackled the most common questions couples face when navigating the marriage-based green card process. Topics included the choice between a K-1 fiancé visa and a marriage green card, current processing times, what counts as relationship evidence, interview preparation, travel restrictions during the process, and how conditional green cards work. The biggest theme running through the session: submitting a complete application has never been more important, given current USCIS policies around denials without RFEs. The PERM Takeaway: Marriage-based immigration and employment-based sponsorship run on separate tracks, but they intersect more often than employers realize. Sponsored employees who are simultaneously navigating a family-based case face overlapping timelines, competing filing strategies, and potential complications if one process affects the other. An employee who adjusts status through marriage may no longer need PERM sponsorship, which changes your workforce planning. Conversely, an employee whose marriage case hits a snag may become more reliant on their employment-based pathway. Employers don't need to manage their employees' personal immigration cases, but awareness that these parallel processes exist helps with workforce forecasting and prevents surprises when an employee's status changes unexpectedly. Stay sharp, stay compliant, and we'll see you next week.

USCIS Can Now Pull Credit Reports on Green Card Sponsors Starting August 31, USCIS gained the authority to request consumer credit reports from anyone sponsoring a green card applicant under the latest Form I-864. The agency hasn't said what credit score (if any) it considers acceptable, and there's no public guidance on how debt levels, late payments, or bankruptcies will factor into sponsorship decisions. Sponsors with credit freezes may be asked to lift them temporarily to avoid processing delays. The new 08/24/26 edition of the form is now required. The PERM Takeaway: For employment-based green cards, the I-864 Affidavit of Support typically involves the employer as the sponsor. That means USCIS could now request a credit report on the sponsoring company or, in some cases, an individual petitioner. The lack of clear standards is the real concern here. Without published thresholds, employers have no way to know in advance whether their financial profile will raise flags. Companies sponsoring workers through the PERM process should review their credit standing proactively and ensure their financials present well on paper. If your company has had recent credit issues, liens, or financial restructuring, flag that to counsel before filing. Getting caught off guard by a credit inquiry mid-adjudication is the kind of delay that compounds in a system already backlogged to 18.6 months. DHS Moves Closer to Killing the 60-Day Grace Period for H-1B Workers A DHS proposal to eliminate the 60-day grace period for H-1B and other visa holders has cleared White House review, which means publication could come soon. The grace period currently gives workers up to 60 days after losing a job to find a new employer, transfer their visa, or change status. Without it, a laid-off H-1B worker would face immediate loss of status. The current rules remain in effect for now, and full details about exceptions or implementation haven't been released yet. But the proposal is no longer theoretical. It's moving through the pipeline. The PERM Takeaway: The 60-day grace period is the safety valve that keeps H-1B workers in the country after an unexpected job loss. Eliminate it, and every layoff becomes an immediate immigration crisis for affected employees. For PERM employers, this has direct retention implications. Sponsored workers who know the grace period could disappear are more anxious about job security, more likely to explore opportunities in other countries, and less willing to commit to multi-year sponsorship timelines. Employers should be communicating proactively with their H-1B workforce about the status of this proposal and reinforcing their commitment to the sponsorship process. On a practical level, companies should also think about what happens if they need to conduct layoffs. Without a grace period, cutting a sponsored employee means effectively deporting them. That's a liability calculation HR departments need to be running now, not after the rule is published. CPT Enforcement Tightens, Internship Pipeline Under Threat The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) is cracking down on Curricular Practical Training, the program that allows F-1 students to work off-campus through qualifying internships and co-ops. New guidance takes a harder line on what qualifies as an "integral part" of a student's curriculum, and the impact is already visible. UC Berkeley and UC Davis have temporarily suspended some course-credit CPT programs. Other universities are reviewing their policies. For employers who hire international students through CPT internships, the available talent pool could shrink before the fall recruiting season. The PERM Takeaway: CPT feeds OPT. OPT feeds H-1B. H-1B feeds PERM. When you tighten enforcement at the internship stage, the entire downstream pipeline contracts. Employers who use CPT internships as a way to identify and evaluate future hires before committing to sponsorship are losing one of their most valuable recruiting tools. If your company has historically used CPT interns as a trial run before extending full-time offers and starting the H-1B and PERM process, you need to check whether the programs you've relied on are still operating. Reach out to your university partners and ask directly whether their CPT authorization process has changed. And if you're losing access to CPT candidates, consider whether other early-engagement strategies, like sponsoring capstone projects or partnering with career services, can fill the gap. Judge Blocks Latest Birthright Citizenship Restriction A federal judge has blocked the administration's most recent executive order attempting to limit birthright citizenship, preventing agencies from denying citizenship to children covered by the policy. The August order tried a narrower approach than the one the Supreme Court struck down earlier this year, targeting specific cases involving parents who are not citizens or permanent residents. The court wasn't persuaded. The administration can continue preparing implementation guidance while the case moves forward, but enforcement is halted. The PERM Takeaway: This is the third time a court has intervened on birthright citizenship in 2026. The legal pattern is clear, but the political persistence means the issue won't disappear from the headlines anytime soon. For employers, the practical reality hasn't changed: U.S.-born children of sponsored workers remain citizens. But the ongoing uncertainty weighs on employee morale and retention. If you have foreign national employees who are watching these headlines with anxiety about their families, a brief, clear communication from HR confirming that the law has not changed can go a long way. Stability in the workplace matters most when everything outside it feels unstable. Stay sharp, stay compliant, and we'll see you next week.

OpenAI Pays $3.2 Million Over PERM Recruitment Failures The biggest name in AI just became the biggest cautionary tale in PERM compliance. The DOJ reached a $3.2 million settlement with OpenAI and its subsidiary Statsig after alleging their PERM recruitment practices discriminated against U.S. workers. The case involved fewer than 10 PERM positions. The penalties include civil fines, back pay, mandatory revisions to recruitment policies, a requirement to accept electronic applications going forward, and three years of federal monitoring. The government's argument was straightforward: OpenAI's PERM hiring process looked fundamentally different from how the company fills its other roles, and that gap constituted discrimination. The PERM Takeaway: This settlement rewrites the compliance playbook for every employer filing PERM cases. The DOJ has now established, through two major enforcement actions in 2026 alone (Cloudera's 180-day suspension and now OpenAI's $3.2 million settlement), that PERM recruitment cannot be a parallel universe from your normal hiring. If you post PERM positions on obscure job boards you'd never otherwise use, set qualification requirements that don't match your actual standards, or run a recruitment process designed to produce zero qualified U.S. applicants, the federal government will treat that as discrimination. Employers need to audit their PERM recruitment campaigns against their standard hiring workflows immediately. Your PERM ad agency should be placing ads on the same platforms you use for regular openings and building campaigns that could withstand a side-by-side comparison with your HR department's typical process. The DOJ is making that comparison. Make sure yours holds up. New Form I-485 Becomes Mandatory September 18, No Grace Period USCIS released a preview of the updated Form I-485, and the clock is ticking. The new version becomes mandatory on September 18 with zero grace period. Submit the old form after that date and it gets rejected. The most significant changes are in the public charge section: new questions, a simplified benefits disclosure table, and stripped-down instructions that remove much of the guidance applicants previously relied on. The rest of the form is largely unchanged, but the public charge revisions are extensive enough to trip up anyone who doesn't prepare. The PERM Takeaway: September 18 is 17 days away. For PERM employers with sponsored workers approaching the adjustment of status stage, this deadline demands action now. The new public charge questions require careful preparation, and the reduced instructional guidance means applicants have less help navigating the answers on their own. Combined with the current policy allowing USCIS to deny applications without issuing an RFE, a mistake on the new form could mean outright denial with no opportunity to correct it. Employers should be coordinating with counsel this week to review the updated form, pre-stage financial documentation, and ensure every I-485 filed after September 18 is built on the new template with complete supporting evidence. Waiting until mid-September to start this preparation is waiting too long. Universities File Suit to Block Student Visa Rule Before September 15 Deadline A coalition of universities, higher education organizations, and labor unions has gone to court to stop the administration's four-year cap on F-1 and J-1 visa holders from taking effect on September 15. The plaintiffs argue the rule creates unnecessary bureaucratic burdens, discourages international students from studying in the U.S., and harms the employers who hire from university talent pipelines. They're asking for a court order halting the rule before it takes effect. Whether the court acts in the next two weeks will determine whether students arriving this fall face a fundamentally different visa landscape. The PERM Takeaway: Two weeks. That's the window between now and a rule that could reshape the foreign talent pipeline for years. Employers who recruit from U.S. universities should be tracking this lawsuit daily. If the court blocks the rule, the current system stays in place. If it doesn't, students face fixed four-year stays, mandatory USCIS extensions for longer programs, and a 30-day grace period that's half what it used to be. Either outcome affects your hiring timeline and your PERM planning. The employers who are already engaging with prospective hires on campus, before graduation, before OPT, before the sponsorship conversation even begins, will have a significant edge regardless of how the court rules. If you're still waiting for graduates to come to you, the new system may send them somewhere else first. TPS Ends for Ethiopians as Court Lifts Protections A federal judge has allowed the administration to terminate TPS for approximately 5,000 Ethiopians in the U.S., lifting the temporary court order that had kept protections in place. This is the last TPS designation the administration had targeted, and affected individuals now face the loss of both deportation protection and work authorization unless they hold another immigration status. The underlying lawsuit will continue on constitutional grounds, including claims of discriminatory intent, but the practical protections are gone effective now. The PERM Takeaway: This is the outcome this blog has been warning about since the TPS extensions began. Every time we covered a TPS story, the advice was the same: use the extension window to explore PERM sponsorship or other permanent pathways. For employers who acted on that advice, their Ethiopian employees may have viable cases in progress. For those who didn't, the options have narrowed dramatically. Workers who have lost TPS and have no alternative status cannot continue working, and employers must handle reverification under I-9 rules accordingly. The lesson extends beyond Ethiopians. Every remaining TPS population faces the same trajectory. If you have TPS holders from any country on your team and you haven't started the PERM conversation yet, this week's headline is your final warning that extensions are not a strategy. Stay sharp, stay compliant, and we'll see you next week.

A bipartisan bill introduced in the House on August 6 would let employers pay $1,200 to have the Department of Labor process Form ETA-9089 within 30 calendar days. The current average for Analyst Review determinations is 372 days. That comparison is doing a lot of work in the coverage so far. Twelve months down to one month is a headline. But the ETA-9089 review is the back half of a PERM case, and it is the half neither the employer nor counsel controls. The front half, the prevailing wage determination and the recruitment period is unaffected by this bill, and it does not get shorter when the back half collapses. It just becomes almost the whole timeline. For firms that handle PERM volume, and for employers who plan hiring around it, that shift is the part worth preparing for. What H.R. 10051 actually does The PERM Backlog Reduction Act of 2026 was introduced by Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) and Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) and referred to the House Judiciary Committee. It is four pages long. The operative provisions: DOL must establish an optional expedited program for Form ETA-9089 and must process the form no later than 30 calendar days after submission. If DOL misses that window and the employer submits a request for information, DOL must process the form within 15 calendar days of receiving that request. The fee is $1,200, inflation-adjusted starting in fiscal year 2028 and rounded to the nearest $10. Fees go into a dedicated DOL PERM Premium Processing Fee Account in the Treasury and may be spent on program administration, staffing, training, adjudication, systems upgrades, and fraud detection. DOL must ensure the program does not degrade standard processing of ETA-9141 or ETA-9089 filed outside the program, and must ensure fees are sufficient to support timely ETA-9141 processing. Two omissions are as significant as anything in the text. The bill uses the word "process" without defining it. USCIS premium processing satisfies its clock by issuing a request for evidence, not only by approving or denying. If DOL can stop the 30-day clock by issuing an audit notification, the guarantee covers a first response rather than a final determination. And unlike the USCIS premium processing statute, H.R. 10051 contains no refund mechanism. The remedy for a missed deadline is a second, shorter deadline. One drafting oddity for anyone reading closely: the subsection exempting implementation from APA rulemaking assigns that determination to the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of State, or the Attorney General. The Secretary of Labor, who runs the program, is not named. Where the time actually goes Pull the current numbers from DOL's own processing times page and the arithmetic is straightforward. A prevailing wage determination has to be in hand before recruitment can be validly documented against a wage. As of the June 30, 2026 update, the National Prevailing Wage Center was working on PERM requests filed in April 2026 for OEWS-based determinations and March 2026 for non-OEWS. Pending PERM wage requests sat at 14,386 for April, 18,310 for May, and 16,797 for June. Call it roughly three months. Then recruitment. Under 20 CFR 656.17, the state workforce agency job order runs 30 days. Professional occupations require two Sunday print advertisements plus three additional recruitment steps from the regulatory menu. Recruitment must conclude at least 30 days before filing and no step may be older than 180 days at filing. The Notice of Filing posts for 10 consecutive business days. Between placement lead times, the mandatory waiting period, and assembling the recruitment report, 60 to 90 days is a realistic range for a case that runs cleanly. Then the ETA-9089, currently averaging 372 days. Under today's conditions, a case that starts from scratch runs somewhere near 18 months, and the portion under the employer's control is about a third of it. Swap in a 30-day adjudication and the same case runs roughly six months, with the front end accounting for the overwhelming majority of the elapsed time. The waiting does not disappear. It relocates to the stage where the employer, counsel, and the advertising vendor are the ones making decisions. What that does to recruitment work Right now, a year of queue time absorbs a great deal. An ad that ran in the wrong publication, a job order that lapsed a few days early, a recruitment report assembled from incomplete tear sheets, all of it sits undiscovered for twelve to fourteen months. By the time a problem surfaces, the case has aged past the point where anyone remembers how it was built, and the employer has long since adjusted around the delay. Compress adjudication to 30 days and the feedback loop tightens to something closer to real time. A recruitment defect that would have surfaced in late 2027 surfaces next month, in front of a client who just paid $1,200 for speed. That changes the economics of the front end in a way that is easy to underrate. When the government is the bottleneck, careful recruitment produces the same outcome as adequate recruitment, only later. When the government is fast, recruitment quality is most of what determines whether the case moves. It also changes the cost of a redo. Restarting recruitment on a case with a year of adjudication ahead of it is painful. Restarting recruitment on a case where everything else takes 30 days means the redo is the entire delay. The audit question Audit Review is a separate queue with its own backlog. DOL was adjudicating audits filed in December 2025 as of the August 20 update, and it reported no average processing figure for Audit Review in July 2026. H.R. 10051 says nothing about audits. It does not exempt premium cases from selection, set a timeline for audited premium cases, or address what the employer receives if a case is pulled after the fee is paid. If the 30-day clock is satisfied by an audit notification, employers paying for speed on cases with thin documentation will get a fast trip into a slow queue. For counsel, that argues for a screening posture rather than a blanket one. The cases that benefit most from premium processing are the ones least likely to be audited: standard requirements, no foreign language requirement, no unusual combination of duties, no layoffs in the occupation, recruitment documented to the letter. The cases where an employer most wants to buy speed are often the ones where speed is least available. What the bill leaves untouched It does not create additional immigrant visa numbers or affect Visa Bulletin priority dates. It does not alter the test of the U.S. labor market or reduce any recruitment obligation under 656.17. It does not guarantee certification. It does not touch Form I-140, adjustment of status, or consular processing. An EB-3 case with a retrogressed priority date will wait exactly as long as it would have. It also does not put a clock on the prevailing wage determination. The ETA-9141 appears in the bill twice, both times as something DOL must protect or support rather than something the program covers. Given the pending volumes at the National Prevailing Wage Center, a three-month wage queue in front of a 30-day adjudication is a plausible steady state. What to do before it moves The bill was referred to House Judiciary and has seen no committee action. It has picked up cosponsors since introduction. Premium processing proposals for PERM have circulated in various forms for years without passage, and nothing about the current calendar makes this one likely to move quickly. None of which is a reason to wait, because the useful preparation is preparation you should be doing anyway. Audit the recruitment file on cases you are running now, on the assumption that someone will read it within 60 days of filing rather than within 400. Look at where placement lead times are adding weeks that the regulations do not require. Find out whether your advertising vendor can produce a complete, dated documentation package on demand or whether assembling one takes a week of email. Get honest about how much of your current PERM timeline is DOL and how much is your own intake, drafting, and approval cycle. If the ETA-9089 review ever does drop to 30 days, the firms that benefit will be the ones whose front end was already tight. The bill would remove one bottleneck from a system that has several. Every remaining bottleneck belongs to someone who can actually do something about it. Sources Bill text, H.R. 10051 (119th Congress): https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr10051ih/xhtml/BILLS-119hr10051ih.html Bill status and cosponsors, Congress.gov: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/10051 Rep. Correa announcement: https://correa.house.gov/news/press-releases/correa-grothman-introduce-perm-backlog-reduction-act-to-address-green-card-processing-delays Rep. Grothman announcement: https://grothman.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=5342 DOL OFLC processing times, PERM and prevailing wage queues: https://flag.dol.gov/processingtimes PERM recruitment requirements, 20 CFR 656.17: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-20/chapter-V/part-656/subpart-C/section-656.17 Notice of filing requirements, 20 CFR 656.10: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-20/chapter-V/part-656/subpart-C/section-656.10

OpenAI Settles PERM Discrimination Case for $3.2 Million The DOJ just made an example out of the most talked-about company in tech. OpenAI and its subsidiary Statsig agreed to a $3.2 million settlement over allegations that their PERM recruitment practices discriminated against U.S. workers. The case involved fewer than 10 PERM positions. Read that again. Fewer than 10 positions, and the result was civil penalties, back pay, revised recruitment policies, a requirement to accept electronic applications, and three years of government monitoring. The government's core argument: OpenAI's PERM recruitment process looked materially different from how the company normally hires, and that gap was enough to trigger a federal investigation. The PERM Takeaway: This settlement should be printed out and taped to the wall of every HR department that files PERM cases. The DOJ has now made it explicit: if your PERM recruitment process differs from your standard hiring practices, you have a problem. Posting jobs in places you'd never normally advertise, using qualification requirements that don't match your actual hiring standards, or running a recruitment campaign that looks like it was designed to produce zero U.S. applicants will get you caught. And the penalties scale far beyond the size of your program. OpenAI filed fewer than 10 PERM cases and ended up with a $3.2 million bill and a federal monitor. Employers need to align their PERM recruitment with their regular hiring workflows, use the same job boards, accept applications the same way, and evaluate candidates using the same criteria. Your PERM ad agency should be building campaigns that mirror how you actually hire, because the DOJ is now comparing the two. USCIS Previews New Form I-485 Ahead of September 18 Mandate USCIS released a preview of the updated Form I-485, and it becomes mandatory on September 18 with no grace period. The biggest changes are in the public charge section: new questions, a simplified benefits disclosure table, and significantly less explanatory guidance in the instructions. Most of the form remains the same, but the public charge revisions are substantial enough that anyone filing on or after September 18 needs to review the updated version carefully. Submitting the old form after the cutoff date will result in rejection. The PERM Takeaway: September 18 is less than a month away, and this form change coincides with the broader public charge rule taking effect on the same date. For PERM employers with sponsored workers preparing adjustment of status filings, the timing demands immediate attention. Counsel should be reviewing the new form now, not on September 17. The stripped-down instructions mean applicants will have less built-in guidance on how to answer the public charge questions, which increases the risk of errors on a form that USCIS can now deny without issuing an RFE. Employers should coordinate with their attorneys to pre-populate answers, gather supporting financial documentation early, and run a dry review of the new form before the mandatory date hits. There is no grace period. Filing the wrong version after September 18 means automatic rejection and lost fees. Universities Sue to Block Four-Year Student Visa Rule A coalition of universities, higher education organizations, and labor unions has filed suit to block the administration's rule replacing "duration of status" with a fixed four-year admission period for F-1 and J-1 visa holders. The plaintiffs argue the rule creates unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles, discourages international students from choosing U.S. schools, and damages universities and employers that depend on international talent. They're asking a federal court to halt the rule before it takes effect on September 15. Whether the court acts in time remains an open question. The PERM Takeaway: This lawsuit adds a layer of uncertainty to a rule that's already creating planning headaches for employers. If the court blocks the rule, duration of status stays in place and students continue under the current system. If the court doesn't act by September 15, the four-year cap takes effect and the pipeline disruption begins. Employers who recruit from university programs are stuck planning for both outcomes simultaneously. The smartest move right now is to identify any sponsored or prospective employees whose status could be affected by the September 15 deadline and ensure their paperwork is in order under either scenario. Don't bet on the lawsuit saving you from the rule. Prepare for it to take effect and treat a court block as a bonus. TPS Protections End for Ethiopians A federal judge has allowed the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for approximately 5,000 Ethiopians living in the U.S., lifting a temporary court order that had delayed the termination. This is the final TPS designation the administration had targeted, and affected Ethiopians now face the loss of both deportation protection and work authorization unless they qualify for another immigration status. The underlying lawsuit will continue on constitutional grounds, including claims of discriminatory intent, but the protections themselves are gone. The PERM Takeaway: Five thousand workers just lost their authorization to work in the United States. For employers with Ethiopian TPS holders on staff, this is no longer a planning exercise. If these employees don't have an alternative immigration status, they cannot continue working. Employers must reverify employment eligibility immediately and understand their obligations under I-9 rules. For any of these workers who are in roles that could support PERM sponsorship, the window to explore that option has narrowed dramatically. An employee without current work authorization cannot begin a new PERM case, so the focus shifts to identifying any remaining legal pathways. If you've been following this blog's consistent advice to start PERM planning during TPS extensions rather than waiting, this is the outcome that advice was designed to prevent. Stay sharp, stay compliant, and we'll see you next week.

State Department Has Revoked More Than 175,000 Visas Under Trump Since January 2025, the State Department has revoked more than 175,000 visas. Most revocations followed law enforcement encounters, with assault, DUI, theft, and drug offenses cited as leading causes. The department also revoked visas tied to fraud, national security concerns, and social media comments celebrating the 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk. Immigration attorneys have raised concerns about the threshold: revocations can occur after a police encounter alone, without a criminal conviction. The PERM Takeaway: A visa revocation can derail a sponsorship case at any stage. If your sponsored employee's visa is revoked while they're abroad for travel, a consular appointment, or a family visit, they may not be able to return to the U.S. to continue working. The fact that revocations can happen without a conviction lowers the threshold significantly. Employers should remind sponsored workers that any law enforcement encounter, even a minor one, can trigger immigration consequences. Beyond criminal matters, the social media dimension adds another layer of risk that most employers aren't thinking about. Companies should ensure that foreign national employees understand how the current enforcement climate operates and that they have counsel available if any issue arises. Prevention and awareness are far cheaper than trying to undo a revocation after it happens. DHS Authorizes Mandatory E-Filing for Immigration Benefits DHS issued an interim final rule, effective August 11, allowing USCIS to require electronic filing for certain immigration benefit requests, including green cards and work permits. Before mandating e-filing for any specific form, USCIS must ensure the form has been available online for at least 180 days and provide 60 days' public notice. Applicants who cannot file electronically can request a hardship waiver, but USCIS must have a waiver process in place before any mandate takes effect. The PERM Takeaway: The shift toward mandatory e-filing has been coming for years, and PERM employers should welcome the direction even as they prepare for the transition. Electronic filing creates cleaner records, faster submission confirmation, and a more auditable trail. For PERM cases that involve multiple forms across the DOL and USCIS pipeline, digital consistency reduces the risk of the kind of documentation gaps that now result in outright denials under the new no-RFE policy. Employers and their counsel should start migrating all filing workflows to electronic systems now, rather than waiting for specific mandates. The waiver provision for hardship cases is worth noting, but most corporate filers won't qualify and shouldn't plan around it. Get your digital filing infrastructure ready. DHS Proposes Doubling Naturalization Application Fees DHS has proposed raising the Form N-400 naturalization fee from $760 to $1,330 for paper filings and from $710 to $1,280 for online filings. The proposal also eliminates the reduced fee option for lower-income applicants and ends fee waiver eligibility for both the N-400 and the N-336 appeal form. Current and former military service members would remain exempt. Public comments are due by August 24. The PERM Takeaway: Naturalization sits at the end of the immigration journey that begins with PERM, and rising costs at every stage add up. An employee who goes through labor certification, an I-140 petition, adjustment of status, and then naturalization is now looking at a significantly more expensive path from start to finish. For employers who frame sponsorship as a long-term investment in talent, these cost increases affect how employees perceive the value of staying in the U.S. versus pursuing opportunities elsewhere. Consider including naturalization fee support or reimbursement as part of your retention benefits for long-tenured sponsored employees. It's a relatively small investment that signals commitment and strengthens loyalty at the moment when an employee finally reaches the finish line. Trump Signs New Executive Orders Targeting Birthright Citizenship Weeks after the Supreme Court struck down his first attempt, President Trump signed two new executive orders on August 6 restricting birthright citizenship and targeting "birth tourism." The orders exclude U.S.-born children of foreign government employees and citizenship-fraud cases, and direct agencies to deny visas to suspected birth tourists. The ACLU and other groups filed suit on August 11, asking a federal court to block implementation. The legal battle over birthright citizenship is heading into round three. The PERM Takeaway: The substance of these orders is narrow, focused on government employees' children and suspected birth tourism, but the persistence of the effort keeps uncertainty alive for the families of sponsored workers. Employees with U.S.-born children have already weathered one Supreme Court challenge and are now watching a second wave of executive action face immediate legal opposition. For employers, the takeaway remains the same as when this fight started: reassure your foreign national workforce that the 14th Amendment protections upheld by the Supreme Court have not changed, stay informed about the litigation, and avoid letting political noise distract from the practical work of moving sponsorship cases forward. ICE Body Camera Rollout Set to Complete by End of August ICE Acting Director David Venturella announced that every officer and agent in the field will be equipped with body-worn cameras by the end of August, ahead of schedule. The rollout follows fatal incidents in Maine, Texas, and Minnesota that drew scrutiny over the lack of recording during enforcement operations. Agency policy allows expedited footage release after serious injury or death in custody, but ICE retains discretion to withhold footage if release could compromise an investigation or someone's privacy. The PERM Takeaway: Body cameras on ICE officers don't change the PERM process, but they do change the enforcement landscape that your sponsored employees navigate every day. Recorded encounters provide documentation that can protect workers in valid immigration status from wrongful detention or overreach during site visits, traffic stops, or community enforcement operations. Employers should see this as a positive development for accountability. If your workplace receives an ICE site visit, body camera footage creates a record that protects both the agency and the employer. Make sure your HR team knows the protocol for handling site visits and that your employees understand their rights during any enforcement encounter. Stay sharp, stay compliant, and we'll see you next week.

For nearly 50 years, three words have governed how international students stay in the United States: duration of status. Under this framework, an F-1 student was admitted for as long as they were making progress in their program. A PhD candidate could take a sixth year to finish a dissertation. A surgical resident could move into a fellowship. A community college student could transfer to a four-year university. The person making those calls was the international student advisor, someone who knew the student, knew the program, and worked inside clear federal guidelines. On September 15th, 2026, that ends. The Department of Homeland Security published a final rule on July 17th replacing duration of status with a fixed date stamped on the I-94, capped at a maximum of four years. Anything beyond that, a transfer, a change in field of study, practical training, the final credits of a degree will now require a formal application to USCIS, with a fee, and with no published standard for how those applications will be decided. In this episode of the Immigration Nerds podcast, host Lauren Clark, Managing Attorney at Erickson Immigration Group, sits down with Dan Berger, Partner at Green and Spiegel and Academic Fellow at Cornell Law School, to break down exactly what this rule changes, who has to file, what date actually controls, and what it sets in motion for an agency already carrying more than 11 million pending cases. For anyone on LinkedIn who works in higher education, talent acquisition, global mobility, immigration law, or healthcare workforce planning, this episode is essential listening. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Duration of Status Was Working, And the Government Never Argued Otherwise One of the most striking points Berger raises early in the episode is that the government never presented evidence that the duration of status framework was broken. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, agencies proposing new regulations are required to justify why a change is needed and to perform economic analysis. By Berger’s assessment, that simply was not done effectively. The existing system delegated oversight to designated school officials (DSOs) who tracked student progress, extended I-20s when warranted, and operated within clear federal guidelines. This worked because academic timelines are inherently unpredictable. A PhD student’s experiments may run longer than expected. A student from a high school without a science lab may need an extra semester to complete a chemistry major. Under duration of status, those were academic decisions made by academic professionals. Under the new rule, they become immigration decisions made by USCIS officers. “It may seem logical to have a fixed expiration date, but sometimes you just don’t know how long a program is going to take. The school is delegated to keep track of the individual and to follow along. With this new rule, that would be up to an immigration officer.” — Dan Berger, Partner at Green and Spiegel, Academic Fellow at Cornell Law School ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The Practical Impact Is Staggering And Full of Unknowns The episode methodically walks through the specific scenarios that will now require a formal USCIS application where none was previously needed. The scope is enormous: A PhD program that extends beyond four years will require an extension application filed with USCIS, subject to discretionary approval, with no published standard for decision-making. OPT (Optional Practical Training) after graduation will now require both an extension of student status and a work card application. Previously, students only needed to apply for the work card. STEM OPT the two-year extension for STEM graduates, may push students past their four-year cap before they even complete the full benefit. Changing education levels (e.g., bachelor’s to master’s to PhD) will require multiple extension applications at each transition. The rule prohibits completing two degrees at the same education level sequentially, meaning a student who wants a master’s in engineering followed by an MBA may no longer be able to do so on an F-1 visa. It remains unclear how dual degree programs (such as MD-PhD programs) fit into the new framework. Foreign journalists on I visas lose duration of status and receive a 240-day window, with no clear guidance on extensions raising concerns about press freedom. And the critical unanswered questions keep stacking up: How early can extension applications be filed? What evidentiary standard will officers apply? What happens if processing takes months and a medical resident’s training is interrupted? None of this has been addressed in published guidance or FAQs. “How early can this be filed? Can I file eight months early? Six months early? What standard will be used to decide? Is it just up to the immigration officer to say, "I don’t think you’re really ready to do a PhD"? We don’t have those answers.” — Dan Berger ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── USCIS Cannot Handle This Volume, And History Proves It Berger provides critical historical context that makes the current rule even more concerning. The Immigration Service attempted something similar in 1973 and again in 1981. Both times, the agency backed off because the administrative burden was unmanageable. At that point, the international student population was a fraction of what it is today. Today, more than one million international students and exchange visitors are in the United States. The rule is projected to add approximately 400,000 new applications per year to an agency that already carries over 11 million pending cases. And that agency, by multiple accounts, has lost roughly 20% of its staff over the past year through attrition and early retirement. Contracts with contractors running mail rooms have lapsed. Technology upgrades have stalled. As Berger puts it plainly: fewer people, more cases, less training, more discretion. The result is a recipe for delay, inconsistency, and denials without adequate reasoning. “You’ve got an agency that has fewer people that’s being required now to do more extreme vetting, so they’re spending more time on each case, and they have fewer people to do those cases. And by doing this, they’re gonna be adding hundreds of thousands of additional cases.” — Dan Berger ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The Chilling Effect on America’s Talent Pipeline Is Already Underway Berger is direct about the broader consequences: this rule will accelerate a chilling effect on international student enrollment that is already measurable. Applications to U.S. institutions from international students have been declining due to uncertainty around enforcement, profiling concerns, and questions about post-graduation work opportunities. This rule adds another layer of uncertainty on top of an already fragile pipeline. The stakes are especially high in STEM fields, where a large percentage of graduate students are international. These are the researchers, engineers, and scientists who feed directly into the U.S. innovation economy. When they choose Canada, Australia, or Europe instead, the talent and the economic activity they generate go with them. Berger shares a conversation with a doctor from Pakistan who spent years planning every detail of his path to a prestigious U.S. residency. The prospect that he might now be unable to complete his training, or do a fellowship afterward, or secure employment all because of discretionary decisions by undertrained officers makes the U.S. a harder commitment to justify. “People don’t want uncertainty. If they’re told they may not be able to complete their training or may not be able to do a fellowship afterward, it may discourage people or may make people consider other countries. And that’s a hard gamble.” — Dan Berger ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── A Legal Challenge Is Coming, And It Has Strong Grounds Berger expects a legal challenge to be filed within weeks. The most likely avenue is an Administrative Procedure Act (APA) challenge arguing that the government failed to follow proper procedure in issuing the rule. Specifically: The proposed rule received over 21,000 public comments an extraordinary volume, especially given that higher education institutions were simultaneously managing significant operational challenges. Many of those comments were highly detailed, including economic data, policy analysis, and expert testimony. Berger argues the government did not adequately respond to those comments or justify the rule with the required economic analysis. A fast-track judicial decision on whether to block the rule while litigation proceeds could come within 60 days. Berger notes that while the government likely has the legal authority to make this change it is probably constitutional the procedural path to get there appears flawed. The failure to justify the rule and meaningfully engage with public comments creates a strong basis for an APA challenge. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── News Nerd Update: What’s Happening Right Now in U.S. Immigration Rob Taylor, Partner at Erickson Immigration Group, delivered key updates relevant to every employer and immigration professional: TPS and EAD Court Rulings: Relief for Multiple Nationalities: Several recent court rulings have provided relief to TPS holders from Haiti, Somalia, and Ukraine regarding their TPS and employment authorization validity periods. The specifics are nuanced by nationality employers and individuals in TPS status should consult the full details at eiglaw.com. $100K H-1B Fee Remains Blocked: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied the government’s motion to stay a lower court ruling that vacated the $100,000 H-1B fee. As of now, the fee remains unapplicable. This is a positive development for employers filing H-1B petitions. August Visa Bulletin: Limited Movement: The August Visa Bulletin showed minimal movement, with only a few months of advancement in select categories. This trend is expected to continue through October, when the new fiscal year brings additional visa numbers and potentially greater forward movement. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Quote Highlight A standout moment from the episode: “I think the idea of having immigration officers, probably without a lot of training, making these decisions relatively quickly in the number of minutes they have to review an application, and with a lot of discretion, is just, unfortunately, a recipe for delay. We may see cases denied just without a lot of good reasoning.” — Dan Berger, Partner at Green and Spiegel, Academic Fellow at Cornell Law School ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Call to Action Subscribe to the Immigration Nerds podcast for ongoing updates and expert insights into immigration law, policy, and the real-world impacts on students, employers, and communities. If you are an international student, speak with your designated school official (DSO) immediately about how this rule affects your specific program and timeline. Visit the International Student Resource Center at internationalstudent.us for free, real-time legal guidance funded by the Talent Mobility Fund. Share this episode with university administrators, medical training programs, and HR teams who employ or recruit international talent, the operational implications are significant and immediate. Visit Erickson Immigration Group at eiglaw.com for the latest immigration news, employer guidance, and strategic support. Remember: If you believe immigration makes us all better, then this is the podcast for you.