April 15, 2004

USCIS Fee Increase Effective April 30

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) bureau of the Department of Homeland Security today issued regulations which will increase some immigration application fees by over 55 percent, becoming effective April 30, 2004.

This rule adjusts the immigration benefit application fees by approximately $55 per application, and increases the biometric fee by $20, in order to ensure sufficient funding to process incoming applications.

This adjustment will apply to immigration benefit applications and petitions, as well to the capturing of biometric information of applicants or petitioners who apply for certain immigration benefits.

In addition, on January 24, 2003, and February 27, 2003, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) published two interim rules that first adjusted fees lower based on section 457 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and then readjusted the fees to preexisting levels, based upon the repeal of section 457.
Accordingly, this final rule will adopt the two interim rules as final without change, and will adopt the fee structure that was proposed on February 3, 2004.

Applications or petitions mailed, postmarked, or otherwise filed, on or after April 30th require the new fee.

USCIS Director, Eduardo Aguirre has indicated that this fee increase will help them to meet their current processing challenges.

However, critics such as the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) comment on the steady decline in USCIS' services. USCIS? backlogs today have reached crisis proportions, delaying business transactions and separating families for months and years.

The fee increases will be used to fund a study on the effectiveness of the 1-800 number service - which is already perceived as a failure - to pay for costs of court cases the Service has lost, and to fund support positions that previously were funded through direct Congressional appropriations.

AILA notes that the current funding system is deeply flawed and needs to be changed. Increased immigration application fees will not fix an overburdened system.

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