The Trump administration this week will formalize a proposal that could make it one of just four countries in the world that charge asylum-seekers for entry.
As The New York Times reported late Friday, the administration plans to publish in the Federal Register a proposal to require a $50 application fee for asylum-seekers as well as a $490 charge for work permits.
“It’s an unprecedented weaponization of government fees,” Doug Rand of the immigrant assistance company Boundless Immigration told the Times.
Currently, the only countries in the world that charge asylum-seekers—who are often fleeing war, persecution, or violence in their home countries—are Iran, Fiji, and Australia.
Also included in the plan, proposed on Friday by Ken Cuccinelli, head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), were significant increases in fees for renewal of DACA protections and citizenship.
Young people protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which is the subject of a Supreme Court case beginning Tuesday, will be required to pay $765 for renewal rather than $495.
Citizenship fees could go up 60 percent, from $725 to $1,170.
Cuccinelli claimed Friday that the charges are needed to help confront his agencies $1.3 billion deficit. By contrast, the total U.S. deficit approached $1 trillion in 2019 under President Donald Trump—yet the president has requested more spending on the military and his proposed border wall.
The immigrant rights group United We Dream denounced the plan to impose financial burdens of young undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers as “outrageous.”
🚨USCIS is trying to raise #DACA renewal fees to $765, this is outrageous! Raising this fee will only put more youth at risk.
Right now the fee remains at $495! Help us make sure youth are able to renew their protection from deportation!
Donate now: https://t.co/eYT4sT7NdW
— United We Dream (@UNITEDWEDREAM) November 9, 2019
“Charging an asylum application fee is simply barbaric,” added Daniel Altschuler of Make the Road Action.
Increasing #DACA renewal fees is senseless and cruel.
Charging an asylum application fee is simply barbaric. https://t.co/LhADrCxWuA
— Daniel Altschuler 🦋 (@altochulo) November 9, 2019
Matthew Soerens of the faith-based refugee aid group tweeted that if Cuccinelli’s proposal goes into effect, the fee for U.S. citizenship will have gone up by more than $1,000 in two decades.
In 1998, the fee to apply for citizenship in the US was $95
When I began working at @worldrelief in 2006, helping churches host naturalization workshops, it was $400
At the workshop my church hosted today, $725
Now, @USCIS proposes raising it to $1170 https://t.co/i9gmtN4ak4
— Matthew Soerens (@MatthewSoerens) November 9, 2019
The newly proposed fee “will actually be even more than $1,170, presuming that does not include a required biometrics fee,” Soerens added. “And none of these prices include paying an attorney, which can be thousands of dollars in some cases.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy