Form I-94

than toward plaintiffs challenging recent FMCSA changes regulating the issuance of commercial driver's licenses to non-domiciled drivers.

The judges questioned why the DOT's rationale for narrowing acceptable documentation to an unexpired passport, and a form I-94 made sense, particularly if a non-domiciled applicant could provide 10 years of driving history.

Lead plaintiff Jorge Rivera Lujan is a DACA immigrant, and the new rule, which went into effect in the spring, no longer accepts employment authorization documents as proof of eligibility.

The court battles over the FMCS-ACDL rule continue, with oral arguments set for September 28 in New York's challenge to the rule.

One other thought just to consider, and I've had a couple of clients asking about this recently, is, well, what about people on OPT? They get their employment authorization document, their EAD, and that's an acceptable List A document for I-9 purposes.

But now, when the I-94 is such a critical component of it too, can we request the I-94 also? And the answer, of course, is, well, not yet, but we may be heading down that road, right, where they'll change the I-9 requirements, where maybe it's going to require an EAD and an I-94 as list A documents.

We'll see how that develops over the next few weeks as we wait for this stuff to go into effect.

Yeah, and I would also mention, I think that's a really good point, Chris, is how do these new policy interpretations modify an employer's obligation, if they do, with respect to onboarding someone who's coming in on one of these work authorization options? And I did want to mention that there is a lawsuit that's challenging these new regulations for the students, and I believe the argument is scheduled for next Tuesday.

Doesn't even say expiration date.

Where is it? It's the I-94.

The I-94 is unacceptable.

Do

not admit after.

On that, I'm not certain, Your Honor.

That's why I think it's even more confusing.

Yeah, the I-94.

And then your country of citizenship, uh, US, non-US, yada, yada, yada.

If you're, again, if you're a resident alien, you're gonna have your, uh, USCIS or I-94 or any one of these numbers, and then you would click that.

But for American citizens, none of that shit matters.

Um, you'll put in US, uh, you know, US versus non-US.

You must register electronically with the U.S. government.

CIS Citizenship and Immigration Services if you were not issued a Form I-94 at entry?

I would have to assume that because the traffic at the Canadian border is so, at times, informal, that no I-94 gets issued.

Therefore, the U.S. government does not have a way to track down who entered and when did they enter.

And therefore, they cannot measure the six months expiration date.

So my inclination would be to believe that it's an attempt to to make the traffic more official, to result in an entry and exit document called the I-94 that measures exactly when you entered so that it could also measure exactly when you exit to measure if you respected the six months.

That's what I think this is about.

I

with respect to the Department of Homeland Security's final rule which replaces the traditional duration of status or D slash S with a fixed period of admission and new extension of status or state procedures.

Many of you may already know that in the past, F-1 students were admitted for duration of status shown by the D slash S on the form I-94 when you entered the U.S.

In practical terms, the student who continued to follow all the rules for maintenance of F-1 student status could generally remain in the U.S. while the student completed the program of study and any authorized practical training.

The new rule, effective from September 15, 2026, changes that framework.

We have lots of unanswered questions here, but I guess the overarching thing here is everyone has to remember that it's not just the I-20 anymore.

Each student's situation is going to be affected on a variety of different issues that you didn't necessarily have to consider so much before.

It's the I-20, of course, but it's also their I-94, their SEVIS history, the dates of their program, duration of any employment authorization, their travel history, and any pending applications.

So it's kind of a wider universe of things that everyone is going to have to take into consideration at this point if these new rules go into effect on September 15th.