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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 you have up to 60 days to find another. DHS wants to delete that 60-day grace period for H-1B, E-3, L-1, O-1, TN and E visa holders. You, your partner and your children would have no legal right to stay, 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. You keep lawful status for up to 60 days.
  • A new employer can file for you while you are still here legally.
  • You can switch to another status: student, visitor, dependent.
  • Your spouse keeps working. Your kids stay in school.
  • If you do have to go, you go properly.

If this passes

  • Your job ends. You are out of status the next morning.
  • A new employer would have needed to file already.
  • The compelling-circumstances work permit moves out of reach.
  • Your spouse's work permit falls with your status.
  • Being out of 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. That gap is what public comments exist to fill. 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. 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.

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. Two to four works well.

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

360 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 am writing in strong opposition to this proposed rule as someone whose lawful status in the United States depends directly on it. I hold one of the nonimmigrant classifications this rule covers.

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.

If DHS's genuine concern is the adjudicative difficulty of determining whether a discretionary grace period applies, there are ways to address that without eliminating the protection. The agency could make the period fixed and non-discretionary, which removes the case-by-case judgment it complains about while preserving the transition window. It could require the worker or employer to notify USCIS when employment ends, giving the agency a clear record. It could shorten the period rather than delete it. Each of these would meet the stated objective at a fraction of the human cost, and DHS should explain why none was adopted.

I urge DHS not to finalize this rule and to retain the existing grace period at 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2). The record as it stands does not support the change: the benefits are asserted rather than measured, the costs fall on tens of thousands of families a year, and less drastic alternatives have not been addressed. Thank you for taking this comment into account.
  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.

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.

What happens if I am laid off on an H-1B or E-3 right now?

The 60-day grace period is still in force today. You have up to 60 days from your last day of work, or until your I-94 expires, whichever comes first, to have a new employer file for you, to change to another status such as F-1 or B-2, or to leave. None of that changes unless this rule is finalized.

Is being out of status the same as unlawful presence?

No, and the difference matters. Out of status means you no longer meet the terms of your visa. Unlawful presence is a separate clock that triggers the three-year and ten-year reentry bars. If you were admitted until a date certain, which is how H-1B, E-3, L-1, O-1 and TN admissions normally work, you can be out of status while your I-94 is still valid without yet accruing unlawful presence. Talk to an immigration attorney about your own dates rather than assuming either way.

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.