The Immigration Law Barrier Blocking International Student-Athletes from NIL

^[1] House v. NCAA, No. 4:20-cv-02155 (N.D. Cal. July 26, 2024).

^[2] Kate Roggio Buck et al., Changing Immigration Policies Pose New Challenges for NCAA Institutions and NIL Opportunities for International Student-Athletes, JD SUPRA, https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/changing-immigration-policies-pose-new-5530587/# (last visited Mar. 5, 2026).

^[3] See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(9) (defining authorized employment categories for F-1 students).

^[4] See 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(f)(9) (governing employment authorization for F-1 students and providing that off-campus employment is permitted only within enumerated exceptions, none of which cover commercial NIL activity).

^[5] Immigration and Nationality Act § 101(a)(15)(P), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(P)(i)(a) (defining the P-1A classification for an alien who “performs as an athlete, individually or as part of a group or team, at an internationally recognized level of performance"); see also 8 CFR 214.2(p)(3) (defining “competition, event, or performance" to include activities incidental to the main athletic event, such as promotional appearances).

^[6] Poa v. Jaddou, No. 24-cv-00887 (M.D. La. filed Oct. 24, 2024) (order denying motion to dismiss, Sept. 19, 2025); Poa v. Jaddou, COLLEGE SPORTS LITIGATION TRACKER, https://www.collegesportslitigationtracker.com/tracker (last visited Apr. 27, 2026). The case is proceeding on a summary judgment track, with briefing scheduled through June 2026. Because certain filings in this matter are not publicly available, the factual recitation in this Article draws from public reporting on the case and publicly available immigration law frameworks.

Louisiana in October 2024, and the case survived USCIS's motion to dismiss in September 2025, with the court holding that a full administrative record was required to answer the questions posed.

USCIS’S Three Denial Grounds

1. NIL Activities Are Not "Ancillary Promotional Activities"

The P-1A visa expressly permits holders to engage in entertainment activities which are incidental to and not the primary purpose of the athlete's admission to the United States.^[1] USCIS's first denial ground was that Poa's proposed NIL activities fall outside these ancillary activities provision. The agency's apparent position is that NIL constitutes direct compensation tied to athletic participation rather than a promotional activity that is collateral to it, placing NIL within the primary athletic purpose rather than incidental to it.

Poa's challenge to this ground rests on a comparison to professional athlete practice. Her commercial value to any brand is entirely derivative of her status as an internationally recognized basketball player; the NIL activity would not exist absent the athletic identity that the P-1A is designed to recognize. On that view, her NIL activities are structurally analogous to the athlete endorsements that have been approved under the same provision in the professional context.^[2] How a reviewing court resolves that comparison will depend on the factual record of Poa's specific proposed activities and how closely such activities track the ancillary activity approvals USCIS has issued in professional contexts.

2. The NIL Representation Agreement Is Not an "Agency Agreement"

The P-1A requires the petition to be filed by a U.S. employer, agent, or sponsor.^[3] In professional sports, this requirement is typically satisfied by a team, league, or licensed sports agency which are entities in a clear employer-principal relationship with the athlete-beneficiary.

USCIS's second denial ground was that Poa's NIL representation agreement does not satisfy this petitioner requirement. A standard NIL agent agreement authorizes a representative to negotiate commercial deals on the athlete's behalf; it is a service contract between athlete and agent rather than an employment or sponsorship arrangement between a petitioning entity and a beneficiary. USCIS determined that structure does not meet the regulatory definition of an agency agreement for P-1A purposes.

Unlike the first denial ground, this one may be addressable through transactional restructuring. If the NIL arrangement were reformulated so that a licensed sports agency served as the formal P-1A petitioner, with the NIL commercial activities defined as services rendered under that petitioner's sponsorship, the structural objection might be cured. Whether USCIS would accept a restructured petition in that form remains an open question, but the denial on this ground appears to turn on contractual form rather than categorical legal prohibition.

3. An Athlete Cannot Attend School on a P-1A Visa

USCIS's third and most structurally significant denial ground is that Poa cannot attend school on a P-1A visa. The P-1A is an event-based, competition-specific classification whose framework presupposes that the holder's primary purpose is athletic competition during a defined competitive cycle.^[4] Full-time academic enrollment was not contemplated as a co-equal primary purpose when the P-1A was designed, and the regulatory text provides no mechanism for accommodating it.^[5]

The dual nonimmigrant status doctrine which permits concurrent maintenance of two nonimmigrant classifications in limited circumstances, does not straightforwardly resolve this tension.^[6] Concurrent F-1 and P-1A status would create a regulatory conflict: the F-1 visa categorically prohibits the commercial NIL activity the P-1A would authorize. A reviewing court can require USCIS to reconsider how it applied the ancillary activities and agency agreement standards, but it cannot create a regulatory framework for concurrent enrollment and P-1A status where none currently exists. Addressing this ground requires action at the agency or congressional level, not the judicial level.

Potential Impacts on Immigration and NIL Law 

The outcome of Poa v. Jaddou, holds implications for how immigration law intersects with the post-House v. NCAA collegiate athletics landscape.

On the ancillary activities question, a ruling favorable to Poa would establish that college athlete NIL deals can qualify as incidental entertainment activities under the P-1A framework. This would provide the first judicial clarification of how that provision applies to collegiate, rather than professional, athletes. Such a ruling would offer a potential pathway for international college athletes to seek P-1A status, though the concurrent enrollment barrier would still need to be addressed separately. A ruling affirming USCIS's position would foreclose that pathway and confirm that the existing P-1A framework does not accommodate the college athlete use case without regulatory or legislative modification.

On the agency agreement question, a court's analysis of whether NIL representation agreements satisfy the P-1A petitioner requirement would provide guidance on how those agreements must be structured for P-1A purposes, information currently unavailable to international athletes and their advisors. Even a ruling against Poa on this ground could be constructive if it identifies clearly what structural features a qualifying agreement must have.

The concurrent enrollment question presents the broadest potential impact. If the case produces a ruling that squarely addresses whether concurrent F-1 and P-1A status is possible or definitively forecloses it, that holding would clarify the legal landscape for every international college athlete currently navigating these questions. The absence of judicial guidance on this point is itself a significant gap, and any ruling the court issues, regardless of which party it favors, would provide a framework that the immigration and sports law bars currently lack.

A comparative note adds context. Both the United Kingdom and Canada have developed visa frameworks that permit international athletes to engage in commercial activities ancillary to their sporting purpose without categorically excluding concurrent academic enrollment.^[7] The existence of those frameworks suggests the combination of athletic competition, academic enrollment, and commercial activity is not legally incoherent; other jurisdictions have found ways to accommodate it. Whether the U.S. framework should be adapted similarly is a policy question that Poa puts squarely before the relevant decision-makers.

Implications for the Sports Industry

The practical consequences of Poa v. Jaddou extend to universities, athletics departments, and the broader NIL marketplace.

The most immediate consequence concerns recruiting. Schools competing for elite international talent, particularly in basketball, soccer, tennis, and track and field, where international athletes constitute a significant share of top prospects, cannot currently offer international recruits the same NIL opportunities available to domestic prospects. Some universities have begun experimenting with structuring certain revenue-sharing payments as "royalties" for name and image licensing, which is designed to qualify such payments as permissible passive income under F-1 regulations.^[8] However, this approach addresses only a narrow subset of NIL activities and has not been formally endorsed by USCIS, leaving most NIL opportunities (endorsements, promotional appearances, and deal-based compensation) still off-limits to international athletes. A domestic athlete and an international athlete with identical credentials and comparable NIL market value are therefore not equivalently situated under current law; the international athlete remains largely excluded from the NIL marketplace by operation of federal immigration law.^[9] That disparity has quietly reshaped how elite international talent routes itself: prospects in basketball, for example, can and do bypass the college pathway altogether in favor of professional leagues abroad that offer immediate compensation, as demonstrated by the pre-draft trajectories of Victor Wembanyama and Alex Sarr. For those athletes, the NIL exclusion is not an inequity to navigate but a reason to look elsewhere entirely, and schools lose the recruiting conversation before it begins. The outcome of Poa will determine whether a lawful pathway exists that schools can present to international recruits as part of their NIL offering or whether that asymmetry is a fixed feature of the current legal landscape.

For athletics departments and their compliance staff, the case highlights a gap in current institutional advising. Most compliance offices are equipped to counsel athletes on NCAA NIL rules; far fewer have developed fluency in the immigration law constraints that separately apply to international athletes. As NIL has become a central element of the college athletics value proposition, the absence of immigration law expertise in athletic compliance functions has become an increasingly significant operational gap.

For the NIL marketplace, the agency agreement ground raises a structural question about how NIL arrangements for international athletes are currently being documented. If the denial on that ground turns on contractual form, then differently structured agreements, those involving a licensed sports agency as formal petitioner, may yield a different outcome. The case thus has implications not just for Poa's individual petition but for how NIL intermediaries document their relationships with international athlete clients going forward.

Best Practices for Organizations Moving Forward

Given the uncertainty surrounding Poa, there are several steps that universities, athletics departments, and NIL practitioners should consider taking regardless of how the litigation resolves.

First, athletics compliance offices should assess their current capacity to advise international student-athletes on immigration law constraints. The NIL era has made immigration counsel a practical necessity for programs with significant international athlete populations. Schools that do not have in-house immigration expertise should identify external counsel with both immigration and sports law backgrounds who can advise international recruits before they sign commitments and international athletes before they enter into any NIL arrangements.

Second, NIL agreements involving international athletes should be reviewed for compatibility with the P-1A petitioner requirement. Even where P-1A status is not currently being sought, understanding whether an existing agreement's structure would satisfy the regulatory petitioner requirement is useful information for future planning. Agents and NIL intermediaries working with international athletes should consult with immigration counsel on whether their standard agreement structures are appropriate for potential P-1A petitions.

Third, universities and athletics departments should clearly communicate the current legal constraints to international recruits during the recruiting process. Representing that an international athlete can access the same NIL marketplace as their domestic counterparts without qualification is inaccurate under current law. Ensuring recruits understand the visa constraints and what avenues may or may not be available to them protects both the athlete and the institution.

Fourth, organizations with an interest in international athlete welfare or the NIL marketplace should monitor federal NIL reform efforts, as no legislation has yet resolved the employment authorization gap that leaves international student-athletes unable to participate in NIL activities without risking their visa status. If such legislation advances, it would have direct operational implications for how international athlete NIL arrangements are structured, and organizations will want to be positioned to adapt their practices promptly.

The ultimate legal resolution of Poa v. Jaddou remains uncertain, and the sealed docket limits access to the specific arguments before the court. What is clear is that the case has identified a structural gap between the post-House NIL framework and the immigration law constraints that apply specifically to international athletes, a gap that universities, practitioners, and policymakers will need to navigate regardless of how the court rules.