Republican propose new immigration fees
by: Lauren Villagran
and Riley Beggin
USA Today
..... Republicans in Congress want to make it substantially more expensive for immigrants to seek refuge in America.
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A new proposal would hike the price of legal immigration to pay for President Donald Trump's sprawling enforcement agenda.
..... The House Republicans' plan would slap a $1,000 price tag on requests for asylum, require $500 payments for work authorization every six months and charge immigrants hundreds of dollars if the appeal court decisions, among other fees.
..... House Judiciary Chair Representative Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said in a committee hearing April 30 [2025] that the new fees could raise $77 billion, allowing Congress to make "necessary investments i immigration enforcement in a fiscally responsible manner."
..... Advocates for immigrants say the proposal is punitive and unrealistic.
..... The "crushing new fees" will "block access to legal from of immigration for many different categories of individuals," said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a trade group.
..... "Previous administrations have raised fees on immigration benefits, but the ext4ent to which these fees are making such a dramatic increase will close of the ability of many people to apply," he said.
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Certain petitions, including for asylum, have historically been low-cost or free of charge in recognition of the vulnerability of asylum-seeking migrants. Current immigration fee structures also allow for fee waivers; the new plan doesn't allow for waivers.
..... The country's legal immigration system is suffering under a massive backlog of legal mitigation applications and court cases.
..... There were more than 1.1 million pending mitigation court causes in fiscal year 2024, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which compiles immigration data. That's up from fewer than 615,000 pending cases in fiscal year 2020.
..... The proposal would direct the fee payments to fund the executive office for Immigration Review, which runs the nation's immigration courts, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
..... USCIS is the agency that processes legal immigration petitions, and it's largely funded by user fees - not taxpayer money
..... USCIS operations are funded by consumers, and it;s reasonable to have fee that folks have to pay to cover necessary costs," said Jennie Murry, executive director of National Immigration Forum, which represents business, religious and law enforcement constituencies on immigration.
..... But, the added "charging fee to asylum seekers, people seeking humanitarian protections, really undermines the point of the programs."
..... The $1,000 fee for asylum applications would raise $748 million over the next 10 years, Jordan said.
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A $550 fee for migrants under temporary protected status and a $550 fee for TPS immigrants to renew their employment authorization would raise $2 billion and $4.7 billion, reflectivity, over the next 10 years.