The public comment period on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposal to eliminate the 60-day grace period for foreign workers who lose their jobs closed at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, November 10, 2026. DHS will now review the comments before deciding whether to publish a final rule — and until it does, the 60-day protection remains fully in force.

Source: Dickinson Wright, Immigration Insights (Nov. 5, 2026)

The proposal, titled “Eliminating the Discretionary 60-Day Grace Period,” was published in the Federal Register on September 11, 2026 (91 FR 57807, Regulation Identifier Number 1615-AD22, DHS Docket No. USCIS-2026-0364). About 27,000 public comments had been posted on the docket by November 1, according to docket tracking reported by F1Jobs.

The rule at stake, 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2), has been in place since January 2017. It says a sponsored worker whose qualifying employment ends is not considered to have failed to maintain status for up to 60 consecutive days, or until the end of the worker's authorised stay (the Form I-94 date), whichever comes first. The grace period lets a laid-off worker look for a new sponsoring employer, change status, or prepare to leave the United States — but it has never authorised the person to work during those 60 days.

What DHS wants to change

The proposed rule would strike 8 CFR 214.1(l)(2) from the regulations entirely. If it is finalised as written, affected workers and their dependents would generally be considered out of status beginning the day after the principal worker's qualifying employment ends, according to analyses of the Federal Register notice by Dickinson Wright and I-9 Intelligence. The proposal specifies no implementation date and no transition protection for a worker who is already inside a grace period on the day a final rule takes effect, and the separate up-to-10-day admission periods elsewhere in the regulation would not replace the protection after a mid-validity job loss.

The categories covered are E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1 and TN workers, together with their dependents — a group that includes H-4 spouses and children. The F-1 student 60-day grace period is not part of this proposal.

Why it matters for the diaspora

Indians make up the large majority of H-1B workers, and Indian and Punjabi professionals and their families are concentrated in the technology and professional hubs this rule would hit first — Silicon Valley and the wider Bay Area, Seattle, Texas, New Jersey and Chicago. Under today's rule, a layoff starts a 60-day clock to find a new sponsor. Under the proposal, that cushion disappears: an H-1B worker's new employer would have to file its petition while the worker is still in status, which in practice can compress a job search from two months into days, and a dependent spouse and children would lose their footing at the same moment.

Opposition filed during the comment period was organised and specific. The University of Michigan submitted a formal comment opposing the rule, warning that elimination would likely produce more immigration status violations after early employment terminations — a point reported in WSNext's coverage of the docket — and business leaders warned the change could destabilise retention of skilled foreign talent. Those warnings are the critics' case, not findings by DHS, which has not published any response to the comments.

Part of a wider tightening

The grace-period proposal is running alongside other employment-immigration changes. A separate DHS proposal published in August 2026 would raise the fee for certain cap-subject H-1B petitions from $780 to $103,265, and on October 14, 2026, DHS finalised — without change — its rule ending automatic extensions of work permits (EADs) for many renewal applicants, according to Dickinson Wright's employer guide. The separate 240-day rule, which lets a worker whose employer files an extension on time keep working for up to 240 days while it is pending, is not part of this proposal and remains available.

What happens next

DHS must now review the submitted comments before it can publish a final rule, and that rulemaking process typically takes several months; a final rule could adopt the proposal as written, modify it, or not proceed. Dickinson Wright advises employers to plan any layoffs or restructuring involving sponsored workers with immigration counsel in the meantime, precisely because the status consequences of a job loss would change overnight if the proposal is finalised. For workers, the practical position today is unchanged: the 60 days still exist — but they are now formally under threat.