Under Presidential Proclamation 9945, effective November 3, 2019, immigrant visa applicants must establish to the satisfaction of a consular officer, that they will be covered by an approved health insurance plan within 30 days of entry into the United States, unless they can establish that they have sufficient financial resources to otherwise cover reasonably foreseeable medical costs. A DOS information collection request notice describes how DOS will initially elicit the information required to make a determination under the proclamation. Comments on that DOS notice are due on October 31, 2019, the day after the notice was published.

DHS published its final public charge rule in the Federal Register on August 14, 2019.

On October 10, 2019, USCIS posted revised versions several forms to add questions relating to the public charge regulation that was scheduled to become effective October 15, 2019. USCIS planned to accept the current unrevised editions of these forms only if they were postmarked on or before October 14, 2019. However, on October 11, 2019, a U.S. District Court in New York issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of the DHS public charge rule. The order also enjoins DHS from “Implementing, considering in connection with any application, or requiring the use of any new or updated forms whose submission would be required under the Rule…”

SEVP Broadcast Message 1910-01 gives notice that SEVP Portal upgrades planned to begin in October 2019 will limit student access to their portal accounts to only six months after their OPT ends. SEVP recommends that students make a copy of their portal record now for future reference.

On September 27, 2019, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program issued policy guidance on the obligations of schools and students regarding the direct relationship between the student's major field of study and the work the student does on pre-completion OPT, standard post-completion OPT, and STEM OPT.

On September 27, 2019, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted a nationwide preliminary injunction that blocks DHS from implementing the expanded expedited removal policy that DHS sought to implement in a July 23, 2019 policy notice. Until resolved, DHS must follow its prior expedited removal policy.

In a September 16, 2019 letter to academic institutions, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) said, "During the next few months, OSTP will be holding meetings at academic institutions across the Nation to converse with researchers and students on matters of research security and other topics..."

On September 4, 2019, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published two notices asking for public comment on DHS's plan to modify a number of CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) and USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) forms to ask for additional identifying information and add social media presence questions. Comments on both notices are due by November 4, 2019.

The Department of Education (DoEd) recently has been reviewing school compliance with foreign gift and contract disclosure reporting requirements. On September 4, 2019 DoEd published notice of a proposed new form that would be used by schools to report gifts and contracts under 20 USC 1011f. Comments are due on or before November 5, 2019.

The Department of Labor (DOL) Office of Alien Labor Certification (OFLC) announced a timeline for implementation of filing the Form ETA-9035 Labor Condition Application (LCA) in the new DOL FLAG system, and the phasing out of filing LCAs in iCert. Instructional videos will be available by September 13, 2019, and an OFLC webinar is planned for September 18, 2019. The plan is that all LCAs will have to be filed in the new FLAG system starting 12:00 noon (Eastern) on October 1, 2019.