The Department of Homeland Security published two immigration rules on Wednesday, October 14, that together end the era of automatic renewals. One, a final rule effective immediately, makes permanent the end of the 540-day automatic extension of work permits. The other, a proposed rule, would strip out the regulation that tells immigration officers to defer to their own previous approvals when the same worker applies to extend an H-1B or L-1 visa.
Under the Biden-era policy, a worker who filed a renewal on time could keep working for up to 540 days while U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services processed the paperwork. That cushion ended for renewals filed on or after October 30, 2025, under an interim rule, and Wednesday's final rule adopts the change exactly as issued. It reaches H-4 spouses of H-1B workers, asylum applicants, and people with pending green-card applications, among others. DHS says ending the automatic extension allows more frequent vetting of the people asking to keep working in the United States.
The proposed rule would delete the deference provision the Biden administration wrote into regulation in December 2024, in its final weeks. DHS estimates the provision covers about 208,000 extension petitions a year, roughly three-quarters of them H-1B. The department's case rests on its own site-visit data: in H-1B extension cases inspected between fiscal 2022 and 2025, while deference applied, USCIS found a combined fraud or noncompliance rate of 22.39 percent. In fiscal 2018 through 2020, when officers did not defer to prior approvals, the rate was 16.77 percent. The pattern held for L-1A executives and managers: 24.46 percent with deference, 18.37 percent without.
DHS says the change “would better align DHS regulations with the statute, which places the burden of proving eligibility for all immigration benefits on the petitioner, applicant, or beneficiary.”
Critics say the new system will push lawful workers out of their jobs while USCIS struggles with its own backlog: more than 432,000 work-permit renewals had been pending at least six months as of June 30, and workers cannot file until 180 days before a permit expires. DHS's own estimate projects 20,000 to 33,000 permits could lapse over 18 months starting in May 2027. Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy warned the deference change revives the first Trump term's wave of evidence requests and denials, saying that taking away deference “makes every H-1B extension a risky endeavor.” A group of H-4 holders sued over the interim rule in January, and a California judge blocked it for those plaintiffs last month on procedural grounds; Wednesday's final rule completes the formal rulemaking for the same policy.
The work-permit rule is in force now. The deference proposal is open for public comment until November 13, and DHS estimates it would produce about 6,000 additional requests for evidence a year if it is finalized.
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