Immigration Filing Fees to Increase on November 23, 2010

Published:November 17, 2010

Effective November 23, 2010, filing fees for most immigration applications and petitions are set to increase, on average, some 10-15%. On the other hand, filing fees for 6 categories of applications are actually set to be reduced, including for I-129F/Petition for Fiance, I-539/Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, N-565 Application for Replacement Naturalization/Citizenship Document and I-131 – Application for Travel Document – but only when filed for Refugee Travel Document. Also, fee waivers based on an applicant’s economic hardship will be accepted in more types of application categories.

Approximately 90% of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ budget comes from the fees it collects for the various immigration related applications and petitions that get filed each year. For fiscal years 2008 and 2009, revenues collected – according to CIS – were significantly less than what was projected, thus prompting this new increase. For certain, the decrease in filings and revenues is not based on a decrease in demand for immigration benefits, such as for green cards, just that the population of eligible immigration benefit applicants is smaller and the options available for the tens of millions of interested applicants are fewer – especially for those in the U.S. without legal status.

It is important to note that the filing fee for standard N-400 Applications for Naturalization did NOT increase, although the required biometrics fee (which must accompany many types of commonly used applications) does increase from $80.00 to $85.00. Below is the new fee schedule (MAKE SURE TO ADD THE INCREASED $85.00 BIOMETRICS FEE TO APPLICATIONS SUCH AS I-485, I-90, N-400, I-751 and several others)

PUBLISHED November 17, 2010 – “IMMIGRATION LAW FORUM”
Copyright © 2010, By Law Offices of Richard Hanus, Chicago, Illinois