It's Friday afternoon and USC's International Student and Scholar Support office is already half-full. In the lobby are members of USC's international community, here to talk with advisors about visas, academic requirements and the many on-campus social events run by the ISSS. Usually, the department's work involves paperwork and check-ins with advisees, all with the aim of helping the university's international scholars feel as comfortable as possible at USC. This week, however, has been unusual.
On Aug. 27, U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, revealed a new policy proposal that would end the duration of status protocol (D/S) for F, J and I visa holders. F and J visas are the main visa types used by international students in the United States. D/S, which has existed since 1978, allows international students to maintain their visas so long as a university department confirms that they are still pursuing their academic program. The USCIS proposal would replace D/S with "an admission for a fixed time period" concurrent to the program's duration, with a maximum of four years. Students can apply for extensions to this time period based on academic need, but these extensions would not be handled entirely within a student's university. Instead, the student would have to apply to the USCIS through their university and make their case to a federal immigration officer.
For many international students and international student advisors, these policies feel like a reversal of decades of visa policy. For ISSS director Harlan Smith, the proposed changes represent a new set of challenges for USC's international community.
"It's a complete rollback," Smith said of the USCIS proposal. "The past is present now, and it appears that, irrespective of public comment, the change will occur."
These new policies come in the wake of a tumultuous spring semester for many international students across the US. March through April in 2025, the USCIS, the Student Exchange Visitor Program and the Department of State revoked over 1,000 student visas for infractions as minor as traffic citations. This wave of revocations reached USC's student community, where, according to the Daily Gamecock, the visas of multiple international students were cancelled. According to Smith, none of the visa cancellations that happened at USC were the result of criminal activities.
"All things being equal, that should not have been the basis for revoking a visa and it has never been the basis for revoking a visa in the past," said Smith.
Since then, uncertainty surrounding visas has continued. Over the summer, the Department of State announced that all applicants for student visas would have their social media accounts screened by the department. These screenings can take place during the application process and upon arrival to the United States, with both being run by a federal immigration officer. The new policy has been labelled as a breach of privacy by some of its detractors, since it requires applicants to set their social media accounts to "public" prior to vetting. Nonetheless, the policy was approved by the federal government and has been implemented shortly after its proposal.
With the start of the fall semester, the United States' international student community is expecting new USCIS and DOS directives to further change the norms of visa law. Now more than ever, international students are trying to keep each other informed about any policy shift.
Bhavya Amin is an international student at USC currently pursuing her masters in exercise science. Alongside her studies, she works with the ISSS on their undergraduate and graduate programming, such as Buddies Beyond Borders, Global Graduates Network and Thinking Globally. Thinking Globally gives international students the opportunity to give presentations about their home countries to U101 classes and Columbia-area schools. Buddies Beyond Borders and the Global Graduates Network pair international and domestic students to help acclimate exchange students to life at USC.
"[Domestic students] can show them some grocery stores and some traditions we have at USC. They can introduce them to First Night Carolina, or Sandstorms, something like that, so that they don't feel alone," Amin said.
However, the threat of visa revocations is a major source of stress for many exchange students. Amin mentioned how the degree of worry a student might have over a visa cancellation depends a lot on the conditions of their home country or the level of investment they have in the US.
"If someone has well-settled family back in their country, and everything is good at home, they might not be that worried about going back home if nothing works out," she said. "But if they have a mortgage to pay or have a financial burden or it's not safe back there they are definitely more stressed out about visas."
Social media screenings are also a point of anxiety for students applying for visas or visa renewals. According to a list of screening guidelines posted by Tulane University's Office of International Students and Scholars, the Department of State will be checking for "any indication of hostility towards the citizens, culture, government institutions, or founding principles of the U.S" as well as any support of "foreign terrorist organizations." In the eyes of critics, these guidelines unduly punish unpopular speech, specifically speech critical of the United States government. For Amin, the guidelines open up the possibility for applicants' political opinions to be misinterpreted as terroristic.
"They are just posting stuff to support their country and what they feel, what they think, and they're just expressing their thoughts, and they might not be actually related to terrorism. It's just their thoughts, what they think about a situation," she said.
These policy shifts have already happened, but USC's international community is still figuring out how to respond to the possible elimination of the D/S protocol if the Immigration Services' proposal passes. Smith worries that the process of applying for an extension could become slower if students must apply to the federal government, largely because the federal government cannot be as responsive as an on-campus department. He also thinks that it would be harder for applicants to get visa extensions due to federal officers not understanding individual students' academic plans.
"We understand academia, federal agencies don't, immigration officers don't," he said. "We know all the many various reasons why something is late, or why something is not clear. Now it will become a matter of we have to explain that to the government."
In the face of this legal uncertainty, Amin stressed the importance of staying up to date with new policy. She discussed how weekly ISSS newsletters helped inform her about visa-related news but wished that there was more overall clarity about how these legal changes would affect students with different academic situations, such as those with highly competitive STAMPS merit scholarships.
"If I'm a STAMPS student, it might act differently for me and if I'm not, then it differs," she said.
Smith also believes that international students need to keep up with these policies, but he mentioned how even the ISSS itself has issues understanding and anticipating new directives. In the past, the ISSS received updates on visa law from government sources. However, Smith said that recently the department was learning of new proposals from third-party news articles, leading to confusion as to how the proposals would actually be implemented.
"We're stressed because international students are stressed. We're stressed because department chairs are stressed and program directors are stressed and faculty are stressed. So it's a food chain. We are expected to have answers and we are expected to respond and tell students what they need to do and when they need to do it," he said.
Despite these visa uncertainties, Amin is enjoying her experience at USC. She's particularly grateful for her job at the ISSS, which has allowed her to ease the financial burden of a college education while connecting her with other international students.
"It feels like home, like more connected," she said.
Still, new regulations on student visas run the risk of alienating international students from their university communities. From Smith's perspective, this alienation has already begun to happen.
"People like me have spent our entire careers trying to make domestic students and international students essentially on parallel," he said. "Now, international students are being held to a much higher standard by governmental authorities, which is contrary to how we in academia try to make people welcome or treat them."
