Hours before it was set to take effect, a federal judge paused a sweeping new federal rule related to duration of status for international students with F-1 and J-1 visas.

The rule change, which was scheduled to go into effect on September 15, provided that affected international students would only be able to remain in the U.S. for the amount of time it took for them to complete their program of study or four years, whichever is less. It also limited when and whether international students can change programs of study.

Because of the impacts the updated rule would have on international students’ enrollment-related activities, the RO, ISS, DAPIR, and OACS have been working closely over the past few months to respond and support students.

A few days before the rule change was stayed, the RO rolled out a new positive service indicator that let international students know they couldn’t change their programs of study during their first year on campus.

Creating the service indicator involved close coordination between multiple departments. ISS provided the RO with lists of impacted students, which the ADTS team then used to manually mass assign the service indicator letting affected students know about the program change restrictions.

With the rule change on hold, the service indicator has been released from all impacted students. It’s not immediately clear what will come next, but the infrastructure is now in place should it be needed.

ISS and the Duration of Status Core Team, including OLA, are closely monitoring the pending litigation for further developments.