New federal fee structure is the latest barrier to immigration

On July 31, United States Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced significant fee increases for most naturalization and benefits requests. While the agency justified the increase as an effort to address budget shortfalls, immigration lawyers and advocates decry the move, arguing it will not only discourage applications for citizenship and other legal immigration benefits, but also further the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.

“The entire tone of the Trump administration is essentially to convey that lower income people are not welcome in this country,” says Violeta Chapin, who runs the Criminal and Immigration Defense Clinic at CU-Boulder.

The new fee structure, set to take effect Oct. 2, will increase costs by a weighted average of 20%, meaning that while a few categories will actually see a cost decrease, others will increase by more than 500%.

USCIS is almost entirely funded by administrative fees, which account for 97% of its budget, and handles all immigration applications and renewals including legal permanent residency, Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals (DACA), work authorization, travel permission and asylum. The agency was created in 2003 under the newly established Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which also includes Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It was part of the post-9/11 dismantling of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which had been responsible for citizenship services and border patrol since 1933.

The last time the agency raised its fees was in 2016, with a similar 21% weighted average increase. USCIS estimates that current rates would leave the agency underfunded by $1 billion annually.  What’s more, USCIS anticipates a 61% drop in application and petition requests through the end of the year in light of the coronavirus pandemic. The agency delayed furloughing more than 13,000 employees at the beginning of August after asking Congress for $1.2 billion in emergency funding. These fee changes were first proposed in November, and would most likely be taking effect regardless of the health crisis.

“USCIS is required to examine incoming and outgoing expenditures and make adjustments based on that analysis,” USCIS Deputy Director for Policy Joseph Edlow said in a statement. “These overdue adjustments in fees are necessary to efficiently and fairly administer our nation’s lawful immigration system, secure the homeland and protect Americans.”

For Laurel Herndon, founder, executive director and managing attorney of The Immigrant Legal Center of Boulder County, the ever-increasing fees are part of the overall destruction of the administrative state as “the Trump administration has created systemic incompetence within USCIS.”

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