Republicans in Congress want to make it substantially more expensive for immigrants to seek refuge in America.
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 they appeal court decisions, among other fees.
House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in a committee hearing April 30 said the new fees could raise $77 billion, allowing Congress to make “necessary investments in immigration enforcement in a fiscally responsible manner.”
Advocates say the proposal is punitive and unrealistic.
The “crushing new fees” will “block access to legal forms 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 extent to which these fees are making such a dramatic increase will close off the ability of many people to apply,” he said.
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 immigration applications and court cases.
There were more than 1.1 million pending immigration court cases in fiscal 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 2020.
“Existing fees in the immigration system have not been updated, in some cases, for many decades. And in many cases, fees have never been applied at all,” Jordan said.
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 fees that folks have to pay to cover necessary costs,” said Jennie Murray, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which represents business, religious and law enforcement constituencies on immigration.
But, she added, “charging fees 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.
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 respectively over the next 10 years.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the revenue figures reflect the sharp drop in migrants at the border or any decreased demand because of the higher cost.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House Republicans propose new immigration fees
