Immigration Fee Increase

An exaggerated price increase is announced for immigration services offered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The measure of the increase in the fees that have been announced this Friday, July 31st by the Department of Homeland Security of the United States, was justified so that the Immigration Agency USCIS, recovers the costs of the immigration services that it offers, since unlike other governmental agencies, it does not depend on the federal budget, but it is self-financed in almost its entirety with the fees that it charges; the measure will take effect from October 2nd of the current year.

However, I must inform you that even though the USCIS Immigration Agency has indicated a weighted increase in its fees of 21%, to recover its operational costs, it is still true that the increase in many of the fees and in the most important procedures required by the immigrant community, represents a hard blow to their pockets in the middle of a pandemic situation like the one we are living in, and to complete it, a $50 fee will be charged for the first time to the Asylum applicants, so in this sense we can also detail:

• The cost of a US Immigration Pardon will increase by 52%.
• The NACARA law for Guatemalans and Salvadorans will increase by 535%. 
• To include a family member in the U Visa (crime victims) will be increased by 546%.
• Citizenship will increase by 81% from currently at  $640 to $1160.
• Work Permit renewal from $410 to $550.
• The processing of the application for suspension of deportation will increase from $285 to $1810.
• The application for Permanent Residence will be increased from $1225 to $2270 almost double. 

This is one of the reasons why it is necessary for the immigrant community to prepare in time to process their immigration cases before the deadline of October 2nd of this year and avoid being affected by these price increases that sadly will hit their pockets; unfortunately, there will be cases that will have their regulatory waiting time after October 2 which will be affected by the new measure.