In the Trump Administration’s latest effort to drastically limit the number of new immigrants and citizens of color in the U.S., it is now proposing to increase the cost of naturalization and green card applications. And it proposes to use these funds to deport more people!

After failing to get Congress to end family-based immigration and slash green cards, the Trump Administration has made and is attempting to make a series of administrative changes attacking our family-based immigration system and placing new barriers for immigrants to naturalize.

Fortunately, many of these changes such as the public charge rule and the health care proclamation are temporarily blocked by federal courts. In fact, our litigation team at Advancing Justice | AAJC is in court today to block U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from continued implementation of another new rule that greatly limits low-income lawful permanent residents from getting fee waivers when they apply to naturalize.

The latest proposed rule published on November 14, 2019 by DHS includes the following changes: 

• Increasing the naturalization application fee to $1,170,
• Eliminating fee waivers for naturalization and many other immigration benefits, 
• Increasing the cost to apply for a green card by 79% to $2,195, and
• Increasing the cost of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) renewal applications by 55% to $765. 

AND the agency proposes to take the extra money from these applications and transfer over $200 million to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in order to deport more people!

We encourage you to file individual comments in opposition to the proposed fee increases by using CLINIC’s portal.

While CLINIC’s proposed language only references naturalization fees, we encourage you to personalize your comments for greater impact and express opposition to the other fee increases described above as well as the transfer of funds to ICE. 

Individual comments have greater impact in slowing or preventing harmful rules from going into effect. Don’t delay! The portal will remain open until 4:00 p.m. ET on Friday, December 13. 

(Note: This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking initially had a 30 day comment period, which would have ended on December 16, 2019. The comment deadline has been extended to December 30, 2019.)