From our friends at AILA:

AILA Doc. No. 19110834 | Dated November 14, 2019

DHS proposed rule which would make changes to the USCIS fee schedule. DHS proposes to adjust USCIS fees by a weighted average increase of 21 percent, add new fees, and make other changes, including form changes and the introduction of several new forms. Comments are due 12/16/19. (84 FR 62280, 11/14/19). If you are interested in commenting on the proposed USCIS fee increase click on the following link: https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=USCIS-2019-0010-0001

The following table includes current fees for USCIS forms and proposed changes.

How does this affect us? 

• The proposed rule would force USCIS customers to pay more for less. USCIS is proposing a 21% overall fee hike without offering evidence that this increase will reverse the ongoing deterioration of the agency’s immigration benefit services. In fact, in key respects the rule would further weaken USCIS’s case processing standards. If implemented, families, protection seekers, and American businesses throughout the country would face the dual burden of increased fees and decreased services.
• The proposed fee hikes, coupled with the elimination of vital fee waivers, would price many individuals and families out of our legal immigration system. If the rule is implemented, application fees for green cards, along with associated work and travel authorization, would surge by 79%, and for citizenship by 83%. The rule would also eliminate fee waivers for those form types as well as for numerous others. Moreover, the rule would significantly raise fees for DACA renewal requests. Taken together, these changes constitute yet another brick in the Trump Administration’s “invisible wall” restricting legal immigration.
• USCIS should rescind its inefficient policies rather than ratchet up fees to subsidize them. In recent years, USCIS’s own inefficient policies have comprised core drivers of its crisis-level case processing delays. Now the agency is proposing higher fees to fund their continued implementation—in effect, foisting onto the public the costs of its own inefficiency. To fix the backlog, the agency should start by ending bad policies—not by raising fees to underwrite them.
• By imposing a fee on asylum applications, the rule could result in the deportation and even death of vulnerable protection seekers. Only three countries in the world charge fees for asylum—now the United States, one of the world’s wealthiest countries – threatens to become the fourth. The proposed fee for affirmative asylum applicants could prove prohibitive for many protection seekers. Children and families lacking financial recourse could be compelled to return to the countries they fled, only to face further persecution or even death.
• The rule’s proposed transfer of over $200 million in USCIS applicant fees to ICE defies the agency’s service-oriented statutory mandate. Congress created USCIS to function as a service-oriented immigration benefits agency, distinct from the immigration enforcement missions of ICE and CBP. Yet the proposed transfer to ICE for immigration enforcement purposes makes clear that USCIS is prioritizing ICE’s work over its own.
• Though the rule seeks to justify its fee increases in large part by citing a need for more staffing, over the past year the agency diverted hundreds of its employees to perform enforcement work for ICE and CBP. In recent years, the rate of new applications and petitions filed with USCIS has declined appreciably. Yet the rule asserts that the agency needs far more resources to properly process its workload. The rule fails to explain why, if that is the case, USCIS sent hundreds of its employees to perform enforcement work for ICE and CBP in FY 2019.
• The proposed rule is bad for business. Among other harmful changes, the rule relaxes the premium processing deadline from 15 calendar days to 15 business days, which will result in slower adjudications at higher prices—and as a consequence, slower hiring for American businesses facing critical workforce gaps and an inefficient agency lessening its own accountability standards.
• Consistent with longstanding practice, USCIS should extend the comment period for the proposed rule from 30 to 60 days. Although the proposed rule is more than twice as long as USCIS’s most recent fee schedule rule, the comment period is half that of its predecessor. A 30-day period is wholly insufficient for the publicly to properly comment on a regulation of this size and complexity.

Citation: AILA Doc. No. 19111438 and AILA Doc. No. 19110834.

What do those letters and numbers mean in your receipt number?  Let’s use the following example:  WAC-15-123-12345.

The first three letters (WAC) reference which USCIS Service Center was initially assigned to process your petition.  I say “initially assigned” because sometimes, due to processing backlogs, etc., USCIS can “transfer” your case to a different location.  If this happens, the Receipt Number will not change.  The first three letters represent the following Service Centers:

• Vermont Service Center                 EAC, VSC
• California Service Center               WAC, CSC
• Nebraska Service Center               LIN, NSC
• Texas Service Center                     SRC, TSC
• National Benefits Center                MSC, NBC
• ELIS (Efiling)                                  IOE
• Potomac Service Center                YSC

The next two digits (two numbers) represent the fiscal year in which the USCIS application was filed.  In our example above,  “15” means that it is received by USCIS in the 2015 fiscal year.  USCIS’ fiscal year starts in October of the previous year.  In other words, the above application was filed sometime between October 2014 and October 2015. 

The three digits represent the business workday that the application was actually logged into the system.  In other words, the 123^rd business workday.  The last five digits simply serve to make the application number unique and do not serve any other function.

See our upcoming article about understanding the function and importance of Priority Dates. 

We hope you have found this helpful!

As we continue to monitor the situation regarding the future of the DACA program, below are some key talking points about the Supreme Court's recent decision to decline to hear the DACA case without first being heard by the lower courts. 

• The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear the Trump administration's appeal of a federal judge's ruling that requires the government to keep the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program open for renewals.
• Under lower court orders that remain in effect, the Department of Homeland Security must continue to accept applications from the roughly 700,000 young people who are currently enrolled in the program, known as DACA, as well as individuals whose DACA grant has expired.
• The lower court's decision does not allow Dreamers to apply for DACA if they have never before applied for the initiative, including Dreamers who are aging into eligibility, couldn't afford the filing fees, or are newly eligible for the initiative. These Dreamers remain at risk of deportation, as do the DACA recipients whose protections have expired while they wait for USCIS to process their renewal applications.
• In a brief order, the court said simply, "It is assumed the court of appeals will act expeditiously to decide this case."
• While Monday's denial gives Dreamers a breath of relief while the case works its way through lower courts, Congress must still act immediately to pass the Dream Act.
• Congress needs to stop kicking the can down the road and move forward on the Dream Act now.
• A bipartisan Dream Act was first introduced in 2001. It is shocking that nearly 20 years later, while Dreamers are still making America a better and stronger nation, Congress has not found the courage to provide them with protection from deportation, and secure for them the promise of a better life as Americans.
• Dreamers across the country deserve the certainty that only permanent legislative protections can bring.
• While some thought the Supreme Court would take up the case, in practice, the justices rarely accept appeals asking them to bypass the lower courts if there is no split in view among the circuits. The justices rejected the Trump Administration's effort to bypass the lower courts.
• DACA allows children of undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, to remain here if they were under 16 when their parents brought them to the U.S. and if they arrived by 2007. DACA recipients can renew their applications every two years.
• Monday's action by the Supreme Court leaves the DACA challenge pending, expected to be taken up by the 2nd and 9th Circuit courts.
• Truly, Congressional action, and a permanent fix for Dreamers is the only solution that makes sense both pragmatically and morally.

BACKGROUND ON THE CASE IN QUESTION

• On Jan. 9, a federal judge in San Francisco, William Alsup, ruled in favor of the University of California and its president, former Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano. They sued to keep the program going after the Trump administration said in September that it would end it within six months. Alsup said Attorney General Jeff Sessions had wrongly concluded that DACA was put in place without proper legal authority.
• The Justice Department immediately said it would contest that ruling before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California. But government lawyers also asked the Supreme Court to take the highly unusual step of agreeing to hear the case, bypassing the appeals court.
• The Supreme Court has agreed only about a dozen times in the past century to immediately take a case and bypass the federal appeals courts, and those case usually involve a national emergency, such as nationwide strikes in the steel and coal industries.
• In asking the court to take the case, the Justice Department took another unusual step in declining to ask the justices to block the lower court order in the meantime, which would have allowed the government to shut DACA down as planned. Such a start-and-stop approach, the government said, would frustrate the goal of winding the program down in an orderly way.

AILA Doc. No. 18022632