USCIS’s Fee Rule Inappropriately Transfers the Cost of the Broken Asylum System to U.S. Employers
CIS recommends reforms to promote equity and efficiency in the legal immigration system
By Elizabeth Jacobs on March 17, 2023
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) submitted a public comment on Monday, March 16, 2023, in response to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s proposal to update the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) fee schedule, titled “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit Request Requirements”. USCIS’s fee schedule sets the rates the agency charges applicants and petitioners who are requesting immigration benefit services from the agency.
In our comment, CIS opposed DHS’s plan to transfer the cost of the border crisis to U.S. businesses that petition for foreign workers. CIS also encouraged USCIS to incorporate the beneficiary-pays principle, which asks beneficiaries to pay for the costs of the services they are provided, when determining how much applicants and petitioners should be paying for immigration benefit services administered by the agency.
Specifically, CIS recommended that USCIS set its fee levels to recover the costs of adjudication for most immigration benefit services (excluding certain humanitarian or statutorily exempt categories), limit fee waiver eligibility where inappropriate or unnecessary, and maintain its discount for online filing, which will increase government efficiency and transparency in the long run. In 2020, USCIS estimated that the agency’s current fee waiver policies would result in USCIS forgoing almost $1.5 billion dollars in revenue annually. USCIS relies on fee-paying applicants and petitioners to pay inflated fees to make up for this loss.
https://cis.org/Jacobs/USCISs-Fee-Rule-Inappropriately-Transfers-Cost-Broken-Asylum-System-US-Employers
