The Trump administration has proposed scrapping the up-to-60-day grace period currently given to Indian and other foreign professionals on H-1B, O-1, L-1 and related US work visas, potentially forcing them to leave the country almost immediately after losing their jobs.
The proposal, issued by the US Department of Homeland Security, would remove the window that currently lets eligible foreign workers stay in the US while job-hunting or regularising their immigration status.
It will reportedly first be opened for public comment before the government can finalise it.
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Why It Matters
In place since 2017, the 60-day grace period gives workers time to find another US employer or wind up personal affairs, selling a home, or pulling children out of school, before departure.
Scrapping it could leave them with little to no runway to arrange alternative sponsorship or exit the country in an orderly way.
DHS framed the change as restoring a stricter link between visa status and employment. "This proposal restores a direct relationship between an alien's non-immigrant status and the specific employment or activity that formed the basis of his or her admission or grant of status in the US and reduces administrative burden," the department reportedly said.
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It added that workers would need to leave immediately once they stop maintaining the underlying job, unless otherwise authorised to remain. The draft rule itself acknowledges it could impose costs on workers and increase the number issued notices to appear before immigration authorities.
Part Of A Broader Pattern
The proposal covers E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B1, L-1, O-1 and TN visa categories and their dependents. It follows other restrictive moves under US President Donald Trump, including an August proposal for a $103,265 fee on cap-subject H-1B applications, after an earlier $100,000 fee announced in September 2025 was struck down in court.
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Washington has defended the fee hikes as covering the administrative cost of the visa system.
Who Is Affected
Consultancies including Deloitte, PwC and Ernst & Young, and outsourcing firms such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCL Tech and LTIMindtree, are among the top H-1B sponsors likely to be affected.
"The impact therefore would not fall only on immigrant families; employers and industries that depend on their skills would feel it as well," immigration attorney Ana Gabriela Urizar of Manifest Law told Hindustan Times.
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