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Keep the 60 Days

Proposed rule · DHS Docket No. USCIS-2026-0364 · 91 FR 57807

Your last day at work
would be your last day
in America.

Lose your job on a work visa today and a DHS regulation treats your status as maintained for up to 60 days. DHS wants to delete that grace period for H-1B, E-3, L-1, O-1, TN and E visa holders. You, your partner and your children would be out of status the next morning.

Nothing has changed yet. This is a proposal, and the public can still object. Anyone can comment, citizen or not, and you can do it without giving your name.

Comments close November 10, 2026

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Covers E-3, H-1B, L-1, O-1, TN, E-1, E-2, H-1B1, and every spouse and child under 21.

65,752

workers a year

DHS's own figure for people on these visas who lost a job or changed employers, averaged across 2021 to 2025. Source

208,000

spouses and children

Their status is attached to someone else's job. It ends on the same morning. Source

8 visa categories. Plus every dependent spouse and child under 21.

0 days to pack. Status ends the day after the job does.

The change

A layoff becomes a deportation clock.

One paragraph, 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2), in force since January 2017. This rule deletes it.

Now

  • Your job ends. The rule treats your status as maintained for up to 60 days.
  • There is a window in which a new employer can file a petition.
  • There is time to apply to change to another status.
  • Your family's status runs on the same clock as yours.
  • If you do have to go, you can go in an orderly way.

If this passes

  • Your job ends. You are out of status the next morning.
  • A new employer would have needed to file before your last day.
  • The compelling-circumstances work permit moves out of reach.
  • Your family's status ends on the same day as yours.
  • A failure to maintain status follows you for years afterward.

DHS’s wording: workers and dependents “would be considered to be immediately failing to maintain their nonimmigrant status the day after the principal alien’s employment or activity ceases.” Source

Who it hits

It does not stop at you.

  1. 01

    You

    Last day of work, last lawful day.

    Sixty days is what separates a setback from a deportation clock. Take it away and your status ends when your pay does. No notice, no time to hand over your work, no window for anybody else to hire you. And being out of status is not paperwork you fix later. It can block an extension, a change of status or a green card, and it comes up at every visa interview you have from then on. Source

  2. 02

    Your family

    208,000 people whose status hangs on somebody else's job.

    Dependent status comes from the worker's. When theirs ends, the spouse's and the children's end with it, on the same day. A spouse holding a work permit, an H-4 or L-2 EAD, loses the right to work over a decision they had no part in. Kids come out of school in the middle of the school year. Plenty of these households have American children in them. Source

  3. 03

    The company that wanted to hire you next

    You cannot hire someone who has to be gone tomorrow.

    A Labor Condition Application takes about a week before a petition can even be filed. Zero days makes a vetted professional who is already here, already working and already paying tax into somebody nobody can employ. Small firms feel it first. They are the ones without an immigration department. Source

  4. 04

    Your landlord, and your lender

    Nobody comes out ahead when a tenant disappears overnight.

    These are households with leases, mortgages, car loans and utility accounts in their names. A planned exit becomes a broken lease, and the American landlord or lender pays for it. The tenant loses the deposit. The owner loses a paying tenant with no notice. The place sits empty. Source

  5. 05

    Your town

    They are neighbors, not numbers in a budget.

    The Economic Innovation Group puts the average H-1B household at about $30,050 a year net into public budgets. That is roughly 2.6 times what a typical American household contributes. In 49 states these households put in more than they take out. That money pays for schools and ambulances in the places these families actually live. The cafe, the soccer club and the dentist all notice when a household vanishes with a day's notice. Source

What DHS says, and what it never counted

DHS says three things. Ending the grace period ties your status directly to your job again. It protects the integrity of the program. And it saves officers the work of deciding, later on, whether the grace period applied.

Then it described the human cost in words, not numbers. It named the population, 65,752 workers a year plus more than 208,000 family members, and never put a dollar figure on what happens to them. The benefit is described and never measured. Source

The work does not disappear. It moves, and it grows.

A change of status requires the applicant to be maintaining status on the day it is filed. That is 8 CFR 248.1(a), and the grace period is what keeps status alive after a job ends. Remove it and both routes out close on the worker's last day of employment.

Where a new employer is willing to hire, that employer files Form I-129, since the I-539 cannot be used to move into H-1B or another work classification. Under this proposal that petition would have to be filed on or before the final day of employment, and a Labor Condition Application alone takes about a week. Where no job has yet appeared, the worker files Form I-539 to seek a change to visitor or student status, and that too would have to be in before the same deadline.

Miss the day and eligibility turns on an officer excusing a late filing as an extraordinary circumstance under 8 CFR 248.1(b). That is a discretionary, case-by-case judgment, which is precisely the kind of decision DHS says this rule spares its officers. The decision does not go away. It gets harder, and it arrives with a filing attached.

Then the dependents. Each spouse and child files their own I-539, and since the Edakunni settlement expired on January 18, 2025, USCIS is no longer required to adjudicate those alongside the principal's petition. I-539 receipts already run past 400,000 a year, processing averages nine to twelve months, and some service centers are at eighteen. DHS did not estimate how many new filings this rule creates, or explain why the agency comes out ahead. Source

Exactly what the rule edits
  1. Removes 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2)The paragraph that creates the grace period. Deleting it is the point of the rule.
  2. Redesignates (l)(3) as the new (l)(2)Housekeeping to close the gap.
  3. Revises 8 CFR 204.5(p)(1)(i)Cuts the cross-reference to the 60-day period. That narrows the compelling-circumstances work permit, which was built for involuntary job loss, in exactly the case it was built for.
  4. Does not restore what came beforeDHS calls this a return to long-standing policy. Before 2017 a terminated worker would usually file Form I-539 to change to B-2 status, which published agency guidance supported. Attorneys report that route is now drawing requests for evidence, notices of intent to deny and denials. The proposal restores the old regime without acknowledging that its safety valve is closing.
  5. Leaves 8 CFR 214.1(l)(1) aloneThe separate 10-day grace period survives. It does nothing for anyone laid off mid-petition.
Read the rule ↗The public docket ↗

Your turn

Write something they have to answer.

DHS has to consider and respond to significant comments before it can finalize this. Ten thousand copies of the same paragraph get counted as one comment. A comment about your own life gets counted on its own.

The comments that carry weight are about the rule, not about how the rule feels. This builds you one that takes apart the agency's stated reasoning, then uses your own circumstances as the evidence for it.

1. Which of these is you?

Anyone can comment. You do not need a visa or citizenship.

2. Who else would this hit?

Check any that apply. Skip this if you would rather not say.

3. Which arguments do you want to make?

Pre-picked for your situation. Keep the first one: arguments about the agency's own reasoning carry more weight than arguments that the rule is simply unwelcome.

4. Your storyMost important

Nobody else can write this part. A few honest sentences beat a page of argument.

Comments are published publicly. Don't include your A-number, passport number, receipt numbers, or your employer's name if that could identify you.

Your comment

409 words

This is still a form letter. Add a sentence or two about your own situation above. That is the part the agency has to answer.

Re: DHS Docket No. USCIS-2026-0364, RIN 1615-AD22 — Eliminating the Discretionary 60-Day Grace Period (91 FR 57807)

I submit this comment in opposition. I hold one of the nonimmigrant classifications covered by this proposal, and I am asking DHS not to finalize it. I hold one of the nonimmigrant classifications this rule covers.

The central justification offered for this rule does not survive contact with the rest of the regulations. DHS says removing the grace period will reduce the burden of determining whether it applies during later adjudications. But 8 CFR 248.1(a) requires an applicant to be maintaining status when a change of status is filed, and the grace period is what preserves that status after employment ends. Remove it and both available routes close on the worker's final day of employment: a new employer's Form I-129, since an I-539 cannot be used to move into a work classification, or the worker's own Form I-539 to change to visitor or student status. Anyone who misses that day falls to the discretionary excusal at 8 CFR 248.1(b), a case-by-case judgment by an officer. The rule does not eliminate a discretionary determination. It relocates it to a harder posture and attaches a filing to it.

This grace period is not a technicality; it is a settled feature of the system that people have planned their lives around since it took effect in January 2017. Families moved continents on the understanding that a layoff would not instantly end their lawful presence. An agency changing course on a longstanding policy has to grapple seriously with the reliance that policy created. I do not see that reckoning anywhere in this proposal, and I ask DHS to undertake it before finalizing anything.

I would like to see the numbers. DHS's own filing identifies roughly 65,752 affected workers a year and over 208,000 dependents, but stops short of quantifying what happens to them. Meanwhile the claimed benefit, less adjudicative work in determining whether the grace period applies, is never sized. Without a genuine comparison, the conclusion that this change is warranted is an assertion rather than a finding.

I respectfully ask DHS to withdraw this proposed rule and leave 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2) in place. Should the agency decide to move forward, it should first put out a quantified analysis of the harms described above and a reasoned response to the alternatives that would meet its stated objective at far lower cost. Thank you for your consideration.
  1. 1. Copy your comment.
  2. 2. Open Regulations.gov.
  3. 3. Paste it into the “Comment” box, then press Submit.
  4. 4. You are done when it shows you a comment tracking number.
Open Regulations.gov

Official federal comment form, docket USCIS-2026-0364. Comments close November 10, 2026.

Read it before you send it. Once you have pasted it on Regulations.gov, change any wording that does not sound like you. That is the whole point.

Questions

The things people ask.

This is a campaign page, not legal advice.

Nothing here is advice about anybody's individual case, and no part of it creates an attorney-client relationship. The answers below describe what the regulation says and what this proposal would change. What that means for one person depends on facts this page cannot see. Anyone whose status is affected should speak to a licensed immigration attorney. AILA's free lawyer search.

Has anything changed yet?

No. This is a proposal. The 60-day grace period is still in force and stays there unless DHS publishes a final rule with an effective date. The comment window is the part you can act on.

Does commenting actually do anything?

When it raises something specific, yes. The Administrative Procedure Act requires an agency to consider and respond to significant comments in its final rule. The comments that change outcomes are the ones describing real impacts the agency has not thought about. Those are also the comments a court looks at if the rule is challenged.

Is this campaign asking for people to be allowed to stay unlawfully?

No. The opposite. The grace period is a lawful-status provision in DHS's own regulations. It exists so that somebody who loses a job through no fault of their own has a defined window to file the right paperwork, move to another lawful status, or leave in an orderly way. Removing it does not reduce unlawful presence. It manufactures it, by closing the filing window before most people know they need it. This campaign asks DHS to keep a rule that keeps people in status.

What does the 60-day grace period actually say?

8 CFR 214.1(l)(2) provides that a worker in one of these classifications, and their dependents, is not considered to have failed to maintain status solely because the qualifying employment ceased, for up to 60 consecutive days or until the end of the authorized validity period, whichever is shorter, once during each validity period. The same paragraph states that unless work is otherwise authorized under 8 CFR 274a.12, the person may not work during that period, and that DHS may shorten or eliminate it as a matter of discretion. It is a defined pause in which to arrange a next step. It is not permission to keep working, and it is not a guaranteed 60 days.

Is being out of status the same as unlawful presence?

No. They are different concepts in the statute, and neither one is a safe place to be. Failing to maintain status is on its own a ground of deportability under INA 237(a)(1)(C)(i), and it can bar a change of status, an extension or an adjustment of status. Unlawful presence is a separate clock under INA 212(a)(9)(B) that triggers the three-year and ten-year reentry bars. For somebody admitted until a date certain it can begin when the I-94 expires, and it can also begin the day after USCIS denies a request with a finding that status was violated, or the day after an immigration judge makes that finding. Do not read the distinction as reassurance. It is not one.

Can this page tell me what to do about my own situation?

No, and it will not try. This is a campaign about a proposed regulation. It is not legal advice, no part of it creates an attorney-client relationship, and it cannot account for the facts that decide an individual case: your I-94 dates, your category, your petition and travel history, your family. Anyone whose status is affected needs a licensed immigration attorney. AILA runs a free lawyer search at ailalawyer.com if you do not already have one.

Will this actually stop the rule?

Probably not on its own, and we would rather say so. Immigration lawyers we have spoken to expect this one to be finalized. The reason to comment anyway is that an agency has to respond to significant comments before it can finalize a rule, and a comment it fails to answer becomes part of the record. That record is what a legal challenge is built from later. Comments are not a vote. They are evidence.

What makes a comment count?

Arguments about the rule, not about how the rule feels. Saying you dislike it carries almost nothing. Pointing out that the agency's stated reason does not hold up, or that it never counted a cost it was required to weigh, is the kind of thing it has to answer. Your own circumstances matter because they are the evidence for that argument: they show a cost the agency did not price. The tool on this page is built that way round on purpose.

Why not just paste a template?

Agencies routinely log thousands of identical form letters as one comment. Your own situation, in your own words, is the part nobody else can write and the part that carries weight. That is why this page builds you a comment instead of handing you a script.

Do I need to be a citizen?

No. Anyone can comment on a proposed federal rule, whatever their citizenship or status. Employers, spouses, landlords, colleagues and neighbors are all welcome, and views from outside the visa system genuinely help the record.

Is my comment public?

Yes, on Regulations.gov, usually including any name you give. You can submit without a name. Do not include your A-number, passport number or receipt numbers.

Sources for every figure on this page

It takes three minutes.

After November 10, 2026, nobody can add anything. The record closes and DHS decides without you.