What is Going on with USCIS Filing Fees?

Posted by Berd & Klauss, PLLC on November 8th, 2020

You probably already know that a major filing fee increase was set to take effect for applications to USCIS postmarked on or after tomorrow, October 2nd . However, yet another lawsuit has been filed seeking to stop the fee increase regulation from taking effect. A judge in California issued an injunction blocking the fee increase this week. The injunction is a preliminary action taken by a court that stops a regulation from taking effect before the merits of the lawsuit are actually heard. It is used when the judge believes that the plaintiffs seeking to block the action have a good chance of winning their case. The actual case will continue to go on and a final decision will ultimately be made, likely several months from now.

USCIS issued this response to the injunction: https://www.uscis.gov/news/news-releases/uscis-response-to-preliminary-injunction-of-fee-rule but has not issued any guidance confirming which fees should be paid after today. USCIS could appeal the decision on the injunction. This all comes at an anxious time for many employment-based immigrants as many people become eligible to file their adjustment of status applications today under the October Visa Bulletin. At this moment, until USCIS publishes guidance confirming the required fees, I am planning to hold off on filing applications until at least Monday. I would hate to mail applications out tomorrow that end up having the wrong fee as they will be rejected. This month is going to be super crazy for USCIS and it could take a long time for them to return rejected applications back. I do not want to risk a rejection that does not arrive until November and end up missing the filing window in October as USCIS usually will not honor the original filing date.

 Soorce URL 

http://immigrationgirl.com/what-is-going-on-with-uscis-filing-fees/

 

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Berd & Klauss, PLLC

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Berd & Klauss, PLLC
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