USCIS Fee Increase Without Corresponding Benefits – How Much is Too Much?!

The USCIS fee increase goes into effect on April 1st. In announcing this fee increase, USCIS touts its record as being entirely fee funded. It further claims, unlike many other federal agencies… “approximately 96% of our funding is from filing fees.”

Significantly, USCIS will begin charging a fee ($600) to be paid by Employment Based Immigration filers for Asylum processing. Ironically, immigrants, and mind you, mostly U.S. Businesses and legal immigrants fund the agency that is responsible for both administering and enforcing many of the laws that ultimately affect immigrant benefits! Clearly, there is a disconnect between perception and reality.

The USCIS narrative about a significant gap between fees and productivity, omits the significant increase in premium processing from $1,440 to $2,500 that went into effect in October of 2020 or for that matter the further increase to $2,805 earlier this year. It appears Congress has blithely shifted the burden of paying for immigration to U.S. businesses that seek to hire and retain qualified, highly skilled professionals. ?

For instance, the new breakdown of fees to process an H-1B petition shows the enormous additional burden imposed on U.S. businesses.

This fee breakdown does not consider an additional $4,000 to be paid by large employers with 50 or more employees and who currently have over 50% of employees in H/L status. This breakdown also does not consider Attorney fees that varies from Firm to Firm.

A recent lawsuit seeks to challenge and enjoin the USCIS from imposing the fee increase set to go into effect on April 1st.

While the association of IT Services companies (IT Serve Alliance) is included as a plaintiff in this lawsuit, the silence is deafening from the largest U.S. businesses (read Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc.), who file the bulk of nonimmigrant H-1B petitions each year. This is significant because these businesses could lobby Congress and alter the status quo and significantly, the way USCIS is funded.

I wonder if it would help if Congress divested USCIS of some of the responsibility for business immigration?

Perhaps, in doing so, add a layer of much needed oversight and accountability? Take for instance, the Department of Commerce, whose mission it is to “drive U.S. economic competitiveness, strengthen domestic industry, and spur the growth of quality jobs in all communities across the country.” Surely, they must be interested in having a say when it comes to business immigration. More importantly, the Department is the “voice of business in the Federal Government,” and could be involved with key aspects of business immigration including providing an annual recommendation on the number of H-1B petitions based on real world demand. For instance, if AI innovation and research is the need of the hour, the DOC could recommend adding an additional tranche of H-1Bs exclusively for the AI industry. Or, when the need of the hour is a vaccine, providing additional numbers for medical scientists, researchers, and technologists. Medically underserved areas could benefit from additional numbers for doctors and physician assistants. The list goes on.

Year after year, the USCIS backlog continues to increase. This is compounded by the increase in Department of State backlogs that are factored into the Visa Bulletin. Each month, the wait for legal business immigration continues to grow. What is needed is a comprehensive rethink of what works. Clearly, increasing fees year after year hasn’t done anything to reduce the backlog, or for that matter improve efficiency. So, why keep doing the same thing when it obviously hasn’t helped?

U.S. Business must speak up if they wish to see real change. Is anyone listening?