New Opportunities to Fight Back
Against Harmful USCIS Proposals

Dear Allies,

As we shared on Friday, USCIS announced an effective date for the agency’s public charge rule. The final rule will only apply to applications and petitions submitted on or after February 24, 2020 (except for in the State of Illinois). DHS will not consider an immigrant’s receipt of the newly listed benefits before Feb. 24, 2020 in the public charge determination. NILC and CLASP responded to the news in this joint statement. 

For more information on the state-of-play of public charge policies in the U.S. and abroad, check out our recently updated Fact Sheet for Advocates. For information on what’s in the final rule, we recommend this Public Charge FAQ Document. For PIF partners working with affected immigrant families, updated community education resources are available on the Know Your Rights section of our website. 

As we work together to prepare for implementation of the DHS Public Charge Rule, we also wanted to alert you to two additional proposals from USCIS that would negatively impact immigrant families with low incomes. Below is more information and resources to help you take action now. 

Sponsor Information Collection:
Comment Period Ends on February 18

USCIS has proposed an information collection that would ask federal, state, and local agencies using the SAVE system to enter information about sponsor deeming and reimbursement. These proposed changes to the SAVE database (housed by USCIS, where it is used to verify benefit applicants’ immigration status) would collect information about whether a benefits granting agency deemed a sponsor’s income in processing a benefits application and whether/how it pursued sponsors for reimbursement. This information collection follows a presidential memo and agency guidance on sponsor deeming and reimbursement issued last year. Comments are due by February 18. The PIF Campaign has developed a  draft template comment for our partners. We also have a fact sheet on sponsor deeming and liability in case you get questions from community members about this topic. 

Fee Hike Rule:
 Comment Period Ends on February 10

USCIS has reopened their comment period for a proposed change to the fee schedule for an additional 15 days, ending on February 10. This impending rule change would hike fees for immigration benefits, blocking low-income immigrants from gaining status or citizenship. The proposal would get rid of all non-statutory fee waivers, among other price hikes to the fee schedule (e.g., $50 asylum application fee, 80%+ increase in the naturalization fee and transfer of $200 million of USCIS revenue to ICE). Our partners at CLINIC have developed a template organizational comment.

Thank you for your continued partnership!

Madison Allen, Center for Law and Social Policy, &
Connie Choi, National Immigration Law Center

Visit us at https://protectingimmigrantfamilies.org/