Requesting reinstatement of F-1 visa

If you fail to maintain your F-1 status, meet with your immigration advisor in the Kearney Center to discuss your options to regain F-1 status and review our document on Regaining F-1 Status (PDF).

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is the organization that will approve your reinstatement request. When requesting reinstatement, you must establish to the satisfaction of USCIS that you:  

• Have not been out of status more than five months at the time of filing the request for reinstatement (or explain why the reinstatement application could not be filed sooner). 
• Do not have a record of repeated or willful violations of immigration regulations. 
• Are currently pursuing, or intending to pursue, a full course of study in the immediate future at the school which issued your I-20. 
• Have not engaged in unauthorized employment. 
• Are not deportable on any ground other than overstaying or failing to maintain F-1 status. 
• The violation of status resulted from circumstances beyond your control. Such circumstances might include serious injury or illness, a natural disaster, or inadvertence, oversight or neglect on the part of the Kearney Center, but would not include instances where a pattern of repeated violations or where a willful failure on the part of the student resulted in the need for reinstatement.
• The violation relates to a reduction in your course load that would have been within the Kearney Center’s power to authorize, and that failure to approve reinstatement would result in extreme hardship to you.