Washington, D.C. (March 26, 2024) – A new
Center for Immigration Studies report finds that the Biden administration plans to make employers seeking foreign workers bear the cost of the border crisis.
The report teases out this and other conclusions from a new U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) fee schedule set to take effect on April 1, 2024.
USCIS relies on fees to operate, with less than five percent of its operations funded by taxpayers through congressional appropriations. The various fees are supposed to cover the actual costs of processing the many kinds of applications, to ensure that those costs are not borne by taxpayers. The fee schedule has not been updated since 2016; the Trump administration prepared an update in 2020, but it was tied up in litigation and revoked by the Biden administration.
The Biden administration’s new fee schedule reflects a departure from the “beneficiary pays” principle, which requires each applicant to cover the cost of the specific services they are receiving. Instead, the new rule is based on an “ability to pay” approach, which means USCIS will be charging more for services that benefit individuals believed to have deeper pockets, such as employers and entrepreneurs, in order to subsidize others. Accordingly, while some immigration benefits will see substantial fee increases well beyond inflation, fee increases for other benefits will be suppressed to further the Biden administration’s policy objectives, rather than recouping the fair costs of adjudication.
One of the most notable changes is the substantial increase in fees for employment-based immigration benefits. Meanwhile, fees for naturalizations, adoptions, and many “humanitarian” benefits will fail to even keep pace with inflation, indicating a subsidy for prioritized benefits.
Elizabeth Jacobs, the Center’s Director of Regulatory Affairs and Policy and author of the report, said, “The fee rule also introduces a new ‘Asylum Program Fee,’ a surcharge designed to transfer some of the costs of the border crisis to U.S. businesses looking to hire legal foreign workers. USCIS also appears to be using these fee hikes to get employers to pressure Congress for more taxpayer funding for USCIS, raising questions about the agency’s financial sustainability.”
The new fee rule also offers discounts for online filing, emphasizing the agency’s sensible push towards digitization. However, the Biden administration’s historic parole expansion is partly to blame for rising costs and long processing times across the immigration system. Without policy changes, USCIS’s resources will continue to be strained.
Jacobs also notes the potential for legal challenges by employers and organizations impacted by the fee increases. Their advocates argue that the responsibility for border security lies with the administration and Congress – not law-abiding citizens with no connection to the border.
