A layoff can already set off a frantic countdown for a temporary foreign worker in the United States. The Trump administration now wants to remove most of that countdown entirely.
The Department of Homeland Security proposed eliminating the discretionary grace period that can give H-1B workers and several other employment-based visa holders up to 60 days after a job ends to find a new sponsor, seek another lawful status or prepare to leave the country. The proposal appeared in the Federal Register on Thursday, September 10, and has not taken effect.
What the proposal would change
Under the current federal regulation, an eligible worker whose employment ends early may receive up to 60 consecutive days—or the time remaining in the worker’s authorized stay, whichever is shorter. It is a discretionary period, not a guaranteed extra two months, but it can give a laid-off worker time to arrange the next legal step without immediately falling out of status.
DHS’s proposed rule would remove that provision. The department’s Federal Register filing argues that lawful status should remain tied more closely to the employment that made the worker eligible for the visa.
For now, nothing changes for workers: the existing rule remains in place while the proposal proceeds through public notice and comment. Reuters reported that the public will have two months to comment before DHS can move toward a final rule.
It reaches beyond H-1B visas
The proposed change covers more than the H-1B program commonly used by technology and consulting companies. It also reaches E-1 treaty traders, E-2 treaty investors, E-3 specialty workers from Australia, H-1B1 workers from Chile and Singapore, L-1 intracompany transferees, O-1 workers with extraordinary ability and TN professionals from Canada and Mexico.
If the rule is finalized substantially as proposed, a worker whose employment ends could lose the buffer now used to secure another sponsoring employer, file for a different status or organize a departure. The impact could also reach spouses and children whose dependent status is tied to the principal worker.
Why employers are watching closely
H-1B visas were created by Congress in 1990 and are heavily used for specialized positions in technology, consulting, engineering and other fields. Reuters identified Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HCLTech and LTIMindtree among the program’s leading sponsors.
DHS acknowledged that companies could experience disruption. The agency said it assumes employers would either offer affected jobs to equally qualified U.S. workers or use the I-129 petition process when their staffing needs still require a foreign worker.
Immigration attorneys cited by Reuters warned that eliminating the grace period would compress the time human-resources teams have to handle layoffs involving foreign nationals. A job loss could suddenly become an immigration deadline for an employee’s entire household, while an employer trying to retain that worker would have far less time to prepare a transfer petition.
A proposal, not an immediate order to leave
The most important distinction is also the easiest to lose in a fast-moving headline: DHS has proposed the change; it has not yet replaced the current regulation.
The text may be revised before any final rule is issued, and a final rule would specify an effective date. Until then, workers should rely on their individual immigration records and qualified legal advice rather than assume that the grace period has disappeared—or that every worker automatically receives all 60 days.
If DHS finalizes the proposal, however, one familiar protection in the employment-visa system would be gone. For thousands of workers, a pink slip would no longer start a two-month search. It could start an immediate race to remain lawfully in the country.
