USCIS plans major fee increases for many case types. Now is the time to file for naturalization and certain other case types for which major fee increases are planned!
On November 14, 2019, USCIS announced its plans to increase the filing fees for many case types by publishing tables of the proposed new fees and the justifications for the changes in the Federal Register. There are some interesting changes, in this round of fee changes, in that USCIS is setting different fee amounts for different work visa types, based on the amount of work that examiners have to spend on processing them. At present, the basic petition fee is the same for all work visa types, with the exception of certain additional fees to fund fraud-deterrence programs and for worker retraining programs, which are required for some visa categories, but not for others. Those additional fees will, of course, remain.
Surprisingly, the fees for some case types will even decrease. This indicates that USCIS did maintain some objectivity in evaluating how much time and effort their examiners spend on processing and deciding different case types. We will explore, however, in a follow-up to this article, some immigration policies and biases of the Trump Administration that the fee changes will serve to support financially.
The following is a table, which reflects the current fees, the new fees, and the amount of change.
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From the table, we can see that the filing fees for certain case types will increase drastically. For instance, the fee for an application for naturalization (citizenship) will increase by $530 from $640 to $1,170! On the other hand, the application fee to renew the permanent resident card will decrease by $40 from $455 to $415. The fees for conditional permanent residents to apply to remove conditions from their residence are increasing: for marriage-based conditional residents, the filing fee for the I-751 petition is increasing by $165 from $595 to $760, and for investment-based conditional residents, under the EB-5 program, the filing fee for the I-829 petition is increasing by $150 from $3,750 to $3,900.
One filing fee change that comes as a surprise is that USCIS is decreasing the filing fee for the I-485 application to apply for permanent residence by $20 from $1,140 to $1,120. The reason that this fee decrease comes as a surprise is that the Trump Administration has increased the amount of work that USCIS examiners must invest into examining whether the applicant has applied for and obtained welfare benefits from the U.S. government, and whether the applicant is likely to request, or to need to request, welfare benefits from the U.S. government in the future. A very extensive new form, the I-944 form, was even created for this purpose, which must be submitted with supporting evidence. Review of this form, the supporting evidence, and verification of whether the applicant did, in fact, apply for and obtain welfare benefits, will require additional hours of the USCIS examiner’s time.
USCIS did not yet announce the date when the new fees will enter into effect. However, USCIS is now under financial pressure to implement fee increases as soon as possible. USCIS is normally a financially self-supporting agency, which operates from its own fee-based income. USCIS recently notified Congress, on May 15, 2020, that it needs $1.2 billion in emergency supplemental funding, since it could run out of money by early July 2020, and then it would need to furlough over 11,000 employees. USCIS has promised Congress, that, if it receives the emergency supplemental funding, it will impose a 10% surcharge on all filing fees in order to repay the $1.2 billion that it is requesting.
What does this mean for people looking to apply for a visa, green card, or citizenship? File as soon as possible before USCIS increases the filing fee for the immigration benefit that you seek and before USCIS imposes a further 10% increase on top of the increase. For those who plan to apply for an immigration benefit the fee for which will decrease, you should consider whether the 10% surcharge will outweigh the decrease in the fee, which, in most cases, it will do, since the decreases are generally very small, typically less than 10% of the current fee.
With some application types, it is necessary to wait until a certain time frame before filing an application. For instance, permanent residents typically need to have 5 years of permanent residence before applying for naturalization. Spouses of U.S. citizens are eligible with three years of conditional and unconditional permanent residence. However, it is important to note that you can apply as soon as you are within 90 days of fulfilling the 3- or 5-year period of permanent residence. Also, the full time that the person had conditional permanent residence counts. People filing the I-751 or I-829 petition to remove conditions from residence can file up to 90 days before the expiration of their conditional permanent residence. Therefore, starting to prepare the case ahead of the 90-day point can enable you to file as soon as you are within the 90-day period.
We can gladly assist you in filing with the aim to beat the coming fee increases. Please contact us to discuss the details.