The Real Costs Behind USCIS Fee Increases
As part of the Make Our Voices Heard campaign granted by the New York Community Trust, Immigrant ARC curated guest blog posts, each written by one of our members. These insightful and informative pieces highlight their insights, learnings, and recommendations around the current issues in immigration and immigration legal services. The posts reflect only the views of the member organization authoring them, and don't necessarily reflect the views of I-ARC, or our coalition as a whole.
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By Marisol Silva Pilares, Make the Road New York
United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that administers a significant part of our federal immigration laws, recently proposed fee increases. These increases will exacerbate income inequality and burden low-income immigrants. For that reason, at Make the Road New York (MRNY) we have called for the proposal to be rescinded. MRNY’s community members and many other immigrant New Yorkers were deeply impacted by the pandemic. Many are still struggling to recover financially. In response, MRNY and our partners advocated for the creation of programs like the New York State Excluded Workers Fund during the height of the pandemic and for its permanent establishment during the recent legislative session in Albany. The idea behind this fund was to offer financial relief for New Yorkers who lost income during the pandemic but were excluded from federal financial stimulus and state unemployment insurance solely because of their immigration status. Our efforts were aimed at addressing income inequities. USCIS’s proposed fee increase does the opposite.
Background on the USCIS Fee Increases
On January 4, 2023, the Department of Homeland Security, (“DHS”) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) in the Federal Register, which proposes wide-ranging fee increases for various USCIS immigration applications and benefits. To justify the proposed increases, USCIS cited the need to reduce their case backlog, hire additional employees to speed up application review, and cover growing operational costs.
USCIS invited public comments on their proposed rule through March 13, 2023. USCIS received over 6,800 comments, the majority in opposition of USCIS’s proposals. These comments captured the significant public outcry and concerns about the impacts of the proposed rule. One of the most alarming changes proposed is unbundling the fees for the I-485 (Adjustment of Status or “AOS”), I-131 (Advance Parole), and I-765 (Employment Authorization Document or “EAD) applications. Currently, applicants filing for adjustment of status can file for their EAD and advance parole simultaneously while only paying the adjustment of status fee. This is important to our members because of their need to have authorized employment to support themselves and their families. Based on the decoupling of these application fees and the fee increases on each application, this change will increase application costs from $1,225 to $2,820. This increased cost will prevent otherwise eligible immigrants from filing their adjustment of status applications.
What happens now?
DHS must review the public comments before publishing a final rule, which we expect to include many of the proposed fee increases. While fees will not change until the final rule goes into effect, immigrant community members have already voiced their concerns over this proposal.
NYC’s Immigrant Community is Still Recovering Financially from the Pandemic
MRNY’s immigrant members were critically impacted during the pandemic. They endured family deaths, loss of employment, and their incomes. Those that had savings saw them diminish and even disappear due to the financial pressures of job losses, medical expenses and financially supporting family members. In 2023, the pandemic continues to have long-lasting financial effects on immigrant New Yorkers.
Demoralizing Effects of News of Potential Fees
Earlier this year, MRNY held committee meetings with community members to educate them about the proposed fee-increase. Organizers also engaged members through group discussions to solicit their reactions and opinions about the potential fee increases. News of the potential USCIS fee increases demoralized the MRNY community. Community members brought up the seemingly never-ending broken promises of immigration reform, essentially voicing the view that the federal government has done little to create new pathways for legalization yet is now seemingly demanding higher fees for the few existing pathways available to community members..
For the select few that are able to adjust their immigration status under existing laws, the USCIS application process is time-consuming, complex, and costly. Community members told MRNY that current application fees are a burden on themselves and their families. Given this high financial burden, the pathway to citizenship feels even more unattainable for our community. MRNY members commented that the proposed fees would make it impossible for them to apply for immigration benefits. They shared how survival expenses, such as rent, food, and childcare expenses swallow their paychecks. As one of our members, a Brooklyn resident, Leonila shared, “Our cost of living is already squeezed by inflation from the pandemic. Raising costs is going to hurt us more because we will have to decide between the things we need to survive.”
Applicants will Incur Additional Costs Due to the Proposed USCIS Fee Increases
As immigration advocates, we foresee that applicants that are unable to adjust their status because of the increased fees will incur additional costs. For example, a VAWA applicant who is not eligible for a fee waiver but cannot afford the new fees for their residency application will instead have to pay for several work permits in order to maintain their work authorization. Under the proposed fee changes, a work permit renewal costs $650 while the application to adjust status costs $1,540. Over time the cost of just two work permits will nearly equal the application cost for residency. Immigrants that are financially strapped may opt to renew their work permits instead of applying for their residency, which would not benefit their overall finances.
Additionally, there are other costs associated with delaying the filing of an application to adjust status, which is often a prerequisite to obtaining a work permit. In a 2019 Labour Economics Journal report, “The wage penalty to undocumented immigration,” economists found that unauthorized immigrant workers earn about 35% less per hour than immigrants with legal status. According to the 2017 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research, “The Earnings of Undocumented Immigrants,” even when adjusting for education and demographic differences, research continues to find a significant “wage penalty” for unauthorized workers ranging from 4 to 24 percent of their hourly wage.
This economic data showcases the negative financial consequences of not having a work permit and underscores the importance of lowering barriers to citizenship. The proposed USCIS fee increases will only exacerbate the wage gap that immigrants face and further burden them financially.
While MRNY members await the final rule, we affirm our commitment to continue fighting for immigrant rights and ensuring the government understands the negative impact that their proposal would have on our community members.
Make the Road New York (“MRNY”) is a non-profit community-based organization with over 25,000 members dedicated to building the power of immigrant and working-class communities to achieve dignity and justice through community organizing, policy innovation, transformative education, and the provision of high-quality legal and survival services.
Marisol Silva Pilares is an ActionNYC Immigration Staff Attorney at MRNY. Previously, she was an Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow at Safe Horizon and at Immigration Justice Corps’ Headquarters, working for the “Adults with Children” Removal Defense Docket. Her career has focused on advocating for immigrant communities. In her free time she is focusing on learning Quechua and baking alfajores.
