New USCIS fees temporarily halted

This has been one of the busiest weeks I have experienced practicing immigration law. As I have been telling you in the past few weeks, that if you are eligible to file, submit your applications and petitions postmarked on October 1 so that you can avoid the new fees that were scheduled to take effect on October 2. I have received several calls, emails, inquiries, and appointments by clients all wanting to file their respective naturalization and adjustment of status applications and other petitions so that they can take advantage of the lower fees. In my previous columns, I also mentioned that with these planned increases in fees, I expect a wave of lawsuits filed against the government on this imposition especially now that we are in the middle of a pandemic. True enough, cases were brought out against the agency, all seeking to prevent USCIS from enforcing this rule on October 2. On September 29, 2020, a federal court judge, US District Judge Jeffrey S. White, of the Northern District of California, enjoined the Department of Homeland Security and the USCIS against implementing the increase of fees.

Briefly, the court reasoned out in its issuance of the injunction in Immigrant Legal Resource Center et al vs. Chad F. Wolf et al, that the plaintiffs in this case will likely succeed in their claim that the DHS secretary was not legally appointed to his position and if that would be the case, then this rule was promulgated without lawful authority. Secondly, it observed that there are procedural and substantive defects in the DHS’s compliance of the requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act. There are also other aspects of the policy that the court found to be important that were ignored by the DHS and for these reasons the court issued the injunction. What’s significant about this decision is that even if it was issued by one federal court in California, it has a nationwide effect. Thus USCIS has no choice for now but to follow this order and while this order is still in effect, USCIS has to accept applications and petitions with the old fees even if postmarked on or after October 2.

This order was issued three days before the supposed new fees were to take effect. So for those submissions which were ready to be filed, we sent them all anyway. More importantly, those applications and petitions which are still in the preparation and near completion phase, I urge you to complete, finalize, and submit those as soon as you can. You’ll never know when the injunction will be lifted and there’s no way that UCSIS will ever decide not to proceed with increasing steeper fees. So while it’s still lower at this time, act now and take advantage of this injunction.

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As of this writing, it was reported that President Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center after he was showing mild symptoms of COVID-19. The president and his wife were both found to be positive of the disease. The official statement released by the White House says “Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the President will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days”.

We shall see in the next few days how this illness affects him personally, politically and his ability to govern. At this time of uncertainty for the country, let us all set aside our political infighting and share our collective hope for his speedy recovery.