DHS proposes eliminating the 60-day grace period following termination of employment.

On September 11, DHS published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, “Eliminating the Discretionary 60-Day Grace Period,” 91 Fed. Reg. 57,807, proposing to delete 8 C.F.R. § 214.1(l)(2). That regulation currently permits individuals in E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1 and TN status, together with qualifying dependents, to receive a discretionary grace period of up to 60 consecutive days following cessation of qualifying employment or activity, or until the end of the existing validity period if sooner. During that period, the individual is not considered to have failed to maintain status solely because the employment ended. The rule was originally adopted in 2016 and became effective in 2017 specifically to facilitate job portability and provide workers time to find another employer or pursue another immigration status. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Eliminating the Discretionary 60-Day Grace Period

DHS now proposes to eliminate that protection altogether. Under the proposed framework, cessation of the employment on which the status depends would generally mean that the individual is expected to depart the United States immediately, unless some independent basis authorizes the individual to remain. DHS’s rationale is that the employment-based classifications are statutorily tied to the qualifying employment and that administration of the discretionary grace period imposes additional adjudicative burdens on USCIS.

What would actually change?

The change would be considerably more significant than merely reducing a 60-day job-search period. Under existing rules, the grace period functions as a status bridge. A terminated H-1B worker, for example, can ordinarily use that period to find another employer and have the new employer file an H-1B petition and extension request; alternatively, the individual might file a change of status, such as to F-1, or potentially pursue adjustment of status where otherwise eligible. DHS itself notes that extensions and changes of status are ordinarily available only where the foreign national has maintained nonimmigrant status when the request is filed.

Removing §214.1(l)(2) would therefore create the possibility that an employee falls out of status essentially when qualifying employment terminates. That could make a later extension or change-of-status request substantially more difficult even if a new employer is quickly found. The NPRM also expressly contemplates that USCIS could, in some cases, issue a Notice to Appear (NTA) after learning that the sponsoring employment has ended and that the foreign national is no longer maintaining status.

DHS is not proposing to eliminate every grace period. The separate up-to-10-day period available to certain workers after the expiration of an approved validity period would remain, but DHS explains that this provision does not protect a worker whose employment ends while the existing validity period is still running.

Practical implication

Employers should not presently tell terminated H-1B, L-1, TN or other covered workers that they have lost the 60-day grace period; existing §214.1(l)(2) remains available. But if the proposal becomes final substantially as written, immigration planning will need to move upstream: new-employer petitions, status changes and departure strategies may need to be prepared before or immediately upon termination, rather than weeks afterward. Employers contemplating layoffs of sponsored workers would also need much closer coordination between HR and immigration counsel.

For employees, the rule would make an employer’s termination date an immigration event of substantially greater consequence. It would also affect dependents whose continuing status – and in some categories their employment authorization – depends on the principal maintaining the underlying status.

El Salvador TPS passes its September 9 expiration date without a conventional DHS determination.

El Salvador’s TPS designation had formally been extended from March 10, 2025 through September 9, 2026. The governing 2025 Federal Register notice contemplated that date as the end of the 18-month extension. But DHS did not issue the normal redetermination and Federal Register notice before the statutory deadline. USCIS/E-Verify instead issued an unusual September 3 statement saying that an announcement concerning El Salvador TPS would be made “at the appropriate time” and, crucially, that until such an announcement is made, Salvadorans present under TPS retain TPS protection, including work authorization.

INA §244(b)(3) requires DHS to review a TPS designation before expiration. If DHS does not make the required determination that the country no longer meets the TPS conditions at least 60 days before expiration, §244(b)(3)(C) provides for an automatic six-month extension, unless the Secretary chooses a 12- or 18-month extension instead.

DHS has applied the same mechanism to other countries, including Honduras and, more recently, Lebanon.

Accordingly, on the presently public record, there is a substantial statutory basis for concluding that El Salvador’s designation has automatically extended for six months – i.e., through March 9, 2027. The problem is that DHS has not yet issued the normal Federal Register notice formally acknowledging that date or explaining the resulting EAD and employment-verification mechanics.

AILA has therefore identified essentially two layers to the problem: substantive TPS protection appears to continue, while the government has left employers and beneficiaries without the normal documentation framework for demonstrating exactly how long that protection and work authorization run. AILA notes that SAVE and E-Verify have not supplied a new expiration date or complete Form I-9 instructions. AILA practice alert on El Salvador TPS

Practical implication

Employers should not treat a Salvadoran TPS employee as automatically unauthorized to work merely because September 9 has passed – that would conflict with USCIS’s current express guidance. At the same time, employers should not simply invent a March 9, 2027 expiration date on Form I-9 without updated DHS instructions. Until DHS issues a Federal Register notice or revised I-9/E-Verify instructions, these cases require particularly careful documentation.

For beneficiaries, the statutory six-month-extension argument is strong, but the episode also demonstrates how vulnerable TPS remains to administrative action. Anyone who has another viable route – family-based adjustment, employment status, asylum or another independent basis for remaining -should evaluate that route rather than relying indefinitely on TPS.

Diversity Visa litigation creates sharply different positions for consular-processing and adjustment-of-status applicants.

The DV-2026 situation has become unusually complicated because the court order, USCIS response and DOS response do not produce the same practical outcome for all applicants.

On August 28, the Northern District of California in Medani v. Trump temporarily vacated policies that had frozen DV processing, including USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0193. USCIS formally responded on September 4, stating that it had been ordered, “to the extent practicable and in good faith,” to take reasonable steps during the remainder of the DV fiscal year to resume ordinary adjudication of affected pending adjustment-of-status applications without applying that policy.

DOS took a different subsequent step. Its August 31 guidance acknowledged that, because of Medani, the December 2025 DV issuance pause was no longer in effect. But DOS then immediately announced a new pause on all DV visa issuance, explaining that it was conducting another review of DV screening and vetting procedures. DOS says applicants may continue submitting applications and attending scheduled interviews, and consular posts will continue scheduling appointments, but no Diversity Visas will be issued while the new pause remains in effect. There are currently no exceptions. DOS Diversity Visa Issuance Updated Guidance

Consular processing versus adjustment of status

For a DV applicant abroad proceeding through a U.S. consulate, DOS currently allows the case to continue procedurally – the DS-260 process, scheduling and interview can proceed – but the visa cannot actually be issued under the present August 31 policy.

For a DV selectee in the United States pursuing adjustment of status, USCIS is instead operating under the Medani order requiring the agency to resume ordinary adjudication of the affected cases, to the extent practicable and in good faith, without applying its prior DV hold memorandum. The court order does not guarantee approval, eliminate substantive eligibility requirements or guarantee that a visa number remains available; it removes the challenged hold and requires the agency to resume adjudication.

The timing makes this very important

DV-2026 is subject to a statutory fiscal-year deadline that is unlike ordinary family- or employment-based preference processing. The September 2026 Visa Bulletin expressly states that entitlement to DV-2026 status ends on September 30, 2026 and that a DV-2026 visa may not be issued after that date. Derivative spouses and children face the same deadline, and DOS cautions that visa numbers could be exhausted even earlier.

Thus, delaying a normal immigrant-visa case often means waiting longer; delaying a DV case beyond September 30 can mean permanent loss of that particular DV selection.

Practical implication

For DV adjustment applicants covered by Medani, counsel should be pressing pending USCIS cases toward adjudication now – responding immediately to RFEs, ensuring medical and supporting documentation are complete, and creating a clear record of efforts to obtain adjudication before September 30. The court ordered USCIS to take reasonable steps; it did not reserve DV-2026 numbers indefinitely beyond the statutory deadline.

For consular applicants, a scheduled interview should generally still be attended because DOS explicitly continues interviewing applicants notwithstanding the issuance pause. The practical objective is to have the case otherwise fully approvable so that, if the new pause is lifted or enjoined before September 30, issuance can occur without avoidable applicant-created delay.

BIA issues a cluster of important new precedents.

Matter of Diji, 30 I&N Dec. 1 – major change to NTA/address law

On September 3, the BIA sitting en banc overruled the 25-year-old Matter of G-Y-R- rule. Diji holds that DHS may rely on the most recent address previously supplied by a noncitizen when it mails an NTA by regular mail. For purposes of an in absentia order, that can include an address supplied to DHS before the NTA was ever issued. Matter of Diji

That is important because G-Y-R- had reasoned that a person generally could not be charged with the INA’s special address-update obligations until receiving the NTA containing notice of those obligations. Diji removes that protection and substantially increases the consequences of an old or inaccurate address sitting in DHS records.

It does not, however, mean that every mailing conclusively establishes receipt. The ordinary rules concerning the presumption of delivery remain relevant. In Diji itself, the BIA emphasized that the respondent supplied no personal affidavit or other meaningful evidence rebutting receipt; the Board noted existing authority under which a sufficiently sound affidavit can rebut the weaker presumption associated with regular mail.

There is also an important appellate-law qualification. The BIA expressly recognizes that it must follow controlling circuit law, and the Diji dissent identifies decisions from the First, Seventh and Ninth Circuits reaching the same or similar conclusion as the now-overruled G-Y-R- rule. Thus, counsel should not assume that Diji automatically erases contrary circuit precedent.

Practical implication. Address maintenance has now become even more important. Counsel should make sure clients understand that updating an address only with one component – or assuming no future DHS correspondence will arrive after an application is denied – can create an in absentia-removal problem years later. For motions to reopen based on nonreceipt, detailed affidavits, address history, returned-mail evidence and other proof of actual nonreceipt become increasingly important.

Matter of A-E-V-M-, 30 I&N Dec. 20 – Venezuela’s political transition is a changed-country-conditions event

The BIA held that the removal of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and ensuing transfer of executive authority constitute changed country conditions that must be considered when evaluating an applicant’s prospective fear of persecution. But the Board did not hold that Venezuelan asylum claims now fail categorically. Instead, it remanded because the IJ had not adequately determined how the political change affected this particular applicant’s individualized future risk. Matter of A-E-V-M-

Practical implication. Pending Venezuelan cases that rely principally on persecution by the former Maduro government should be updated rather than presented on a pre-2026 country-conditions record. The critical question becomes whether former persecutors, security structures, party organizations, local actors or other sources of persecution retain the ability and inclination to harm the individual notwithstanding the change in national leadership. Evidence of an applicant’s continued political activity in the United States may also become particularly relevant.

Matter of S-K-E-, 30 I&N Dec. 27 – corroboration and evidentiary discipline

S-K-E- addresses several procedural and evidentiary issues. Among other things, the BIA upheld an IJ’s refusal to consider documents filed after the merits hearing where the record had been left open only for specified other evidence, rejected claimed prejudice concerning limitations placed on an expert’s qualification, and held that a respondent found not credible who lacked sufficient corroboration concerning his sexual orientation failed to establish CAT eligibility on that theory. Matter of S-K-E-

The significance of the decision is the Board’s willingness to enforce filing limitations strictly and to treat the absence of corroboration as significant once credibility has already failed.

Practical implication. Immigration-court cases increasingly need to be built as though the merits-hearing evidentiary deadline is genuinely final. Practitioners should identify corroborative gaps early, submit documentary evidence timely, and make a record explaining why reasonably expected corroboration cannot be obtained rather than attempting to cure the problem after testimony has exposed it.

Matter of V-S-A-, 30 I&N Dec. 37 – DHS may compare asylum declarations from different cases

On September 10, the BIA held that DHS and immigration judges may use redacted declarations from other immigration proceedings when examining similarities between asylum claims. The Board concluded that redacting identifying information adequately protects asylum confidentiality and that Matter of R-K-K- does not require the authors of the comparison declarations to be produced for cross-examination. Matter of V-S-A-

This gives DHS considerably more room to challenge applications containing language or factual patterns that resemble unrelated filings. It does not make the use of templates unlawful or automatically establish fabrication, but it makes individualized drafting and the ability to explain legitimate similarities considerably more important.

Practical implication. Counsel should scrutinize declarations prepared by prior attorneys, preparers or translators for boilerplate factual language before filing or proceeding to hearing. Where similarities have an innocent explanation – for example, use of the same translator, standard introductory language or genuinely similar political events – the applicant should be prepared to explain that circumstance rather than first confronting the issue during cross-examination.