US Ends Open-Ended Stays for International Students as Afrikaner Refugee Program Slows

A change to United States immigration rules takes effect Tuesday that requires international students to track how long they are authorized to remain. The Department of Homeland Security is ending the long-standing practice of admitting students for "duration of status," under which a student could stay as long as they remained enrolled. Fixed admission periods replace it, meaning students must apply for extensions and risk accruing unlawful presence if an application is late.

International education is one of the larger American service exports, and the students affected come disproportionately from India, China, Nigeria and Pakistan. Universities that depend on full-fee foreign enrollment face an added administrative burden that competing destinations in Canada, Britain, Australia and increasingly East Asia will use in their own recruiting.

A separate program moving in the opposite political direction is also slowing. The Guardian reported that white South Africans who applied under the refugee route President Trump announced in February 2025 are being denied status, with applicants describing rejections after they had already sold property and left jobs. The South African government has rejected the claim of systematic persecution the program was built on, and researchers who have examined farm-attack data say the killings are consistent with the country's broader violent-crime rate rather than evidence of a campaign against one group.

Taken together, the two decisions show an immigration system being narrowed and redirected by executive discretion rather than by statute, which makes the rules for any given category reversible within a single administration.