Proposed Increase in USCIS Filing Fees Remains on Hold

Earlier this week, the government decided to seek dismissal of its own appeal in the litigation over the US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ plan to dramatically increase its filing fees.  The proposed fee increase had been scheduled to take effect on October 2, 2020, but was stopped by a federal court in late September.  This interesting move by the government signals a positive change in the agency’s stand on immigration. 

As a result, the proposed filing fees and the new 10/02/20 editions of Forms I-129, Form I-765, Form I-912, and Forms N-600/N-600A continue to remain on hold.  Applications that have been submitted with the new forms and increased filing fees will be accepted.

By way of background, USCIS had previously announced that it would increase most of its government filing fees effective October 2, 2020, due to budgetary shortfalls (see our previous blog post for details of the proposed fee increases).

In late September, a federal judge blocked USCIS from increasing its filing fees. The judge found possible procedural and substantive violations under the Administrative Procedures Act, and defects in the way the Acting Secretaries for the Department of Homeland Security at the time had been appointed, the combination of which made him decide to temporarily block the proposed fee increases until these issues could be thoroughly addressed. Please see our previous blog post for more details about this decision.

We will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as soon as we have more information. 

This alert is for informational purposes only. Please contact me if you would like to discuss this development further.