The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a proposal to raise immigration filing fees by June of this year.
It explained that the proposed increases are in line with the agency's efforts to to meet national security requirements and customer service needs, and modernizes an outdated business infrastructure.
The Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law, Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) issued the following statement in relation to the proposed increases: “Although I want to ensure that USCIS has the necessary resources to carry out its mission, the scope and scale of this fee increase on immigration applications raises many questions for me. I plan to carefully examine the USCIS' new study and the justification for this increase with my colleagues on the Immigration Subcommittee before its implementation. Changes in the current fee structure must be fair and reasonable.”
Nurses are petitioned by employers using form I-140. Under the proposal, employers will be paying an additional $280 for every petition filed. The complete proposal is available here.
The USCIS predicts a 20% reduction in average processing times by 2009 as a result of the proposed increases.
