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The United States decided to restrict the legal length of stay for foreign journalists and students, according to an administrative document published on Thursday, in a new hardening of immigration policy by President Donald Trump.
Unless blocked by Congress, the measure will take effect in September.
According to the new regulations, foreigners holding a student visa will not be able to remain in U.S. territory for more than four years.
Stays for foreign journalists will be limited to 240 days, about eight months, although they may opt for extensions for equal periods.
Chinese journalists will be subject to a particularly restrictive framework, with visas of a maximum of 90 days.
A hundred international media outlets and press organizations, including AFP, stated in an open letter that this would "reduce the quantity and quality of coverage" of U.S. current events.
Trump's Republican party, which promised to put an end to illegal immigration and limit legal immigration, holds the majority in Congress.
Until now, the United States granted visas for the duration of the study program for students and up to five years for journalists.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) received nearly 22,000 public comments when it proposed the rules for students and journalists in August 2025, but it barely modified them.
The DHS alleged at the time that foreigners were indefinitely prolonging their studies in order to remain in the country as "perpetual students."
It also stated that the mechanism, with indeterminate end dates that had been in effect for students since the late 1970s, had undermined its ability to oversee visa beneficiaries.
The United States hosted more than 1.1 million international students in the 2023-24 academic year, more than any other country. They contributed more than 50 billion dollars to the U.S. economy in 2023, according to official data.
Higher education associations had denounced the proposal to limit foreign stays as an unnecessary bureaucratic obstacle that would deter talented students.
Universities have already reported a reduction in international enrollment following previous measures by the Trump administration, including the revocation of thousands of student visas and the suspension of billions of dollars in federal research funding.
Press groups and other international entities, including the Japanese embassy, urged the DHS to allow admission periods of between two and five years for foreign correspondents in the United States.
The DHS rejected these proposals, as well as the request for expedited processing and reduced fees for journalists.
Trump proposed similar restrictions at the end of his first term (2017-2021), but his successor, Democrat Joe Biden, scrapped the proposal.
[Publicidad]