Highlights of the Proposed Rule
• The fee for H-1B Cap Registration would be raised from $10 to $215 per registration.
• Premium processing times would be lengthened from 15 calendar days to 15 business days. Weekends and holidays would no longer be included thereby increasing the time for the USCIS to respond.
• A new “Asylum Program Fee” of $600 would be added in addition to the newly increased Form I-129 and Form I-140 filing fees.
• The fee for an H-1B petition for a professional employee would be raised from $460 to $780 not including the additional $600 Asylum Program Fee.
• The fee for an L-1 petition for an intracompany transferee would be increased from $460 to $1385 not including the additional $600 Asylum Program Fee.
• Applicants for Adjustment of Status would no longer be eligible for one bundled fee for forms I-485, I-765 (EAD) and I-131 (AP).
• In many cases, filing fees for online applications would be less than filing paper-based applications.
• For EB-5 investors, filing fees for form I-526 and I-526E would be raised from $3,675 to $11,160. The fee for Form I-829 to transition from a 2-year conditional to a permanent green card for an EB-5 investor would be increased from $3,835 to $9,525.
Evaluation of the Proposed Rule
It is obvious that because of a lack of federal funding, the principal objective of the proposed rule is to get employers who sponsor professionals for temporary visas and green cards to pay billions of dollars to fund the asylum program.
Although a reasonable increase in filing fees is clearly warranted, this proposal is unfair.
Most of these employers receive no benefits from the asylum program and it is unfair to penalize them for the failure of Congress to appropriate the required funds to adjudicate asylum applications.
Even worse, not all sponsoring employers have the funds to pay the increased filing fees. Many universities and non-profit organizations will no longer be able to sponsor researchers for visas and green cards.
Also, a large number of health care providers and hospitals in medically-underserved areas will not be able to sponsor needed physicians, nurses and other health care professionals. Over 25% of our country is medically underserved, and the shortage of primary care physicians and registered nurses numbers in the hundreds of thousands and continues to rise.
American citizens are already severely impacted by our shortage of doctors and nurses and are heavily dependent on foreign-born MDs and RNs for their care. The USCIS rule would only make things worse.
