A petition urging the White House to act urgently on a court ruling that may force thousands of recent STEM graduates to leave the U.S. early next year reached 100,000 signatures Tuesday, the threshold for an official government response.
The signature threshold obligates the White House to provide an official response to the petition in 60 days. But the government has less time than that to come up with a plan for remedying a court ruling that clouds the future for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates who are working on a student visa.
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There is an expectation among some immigration attorneys that the White House may seek to broaden the rule and expand it beyond 17 months, an action that Ian Macdonald, an immigration attorney at Greenberg Traurig, said may happen.