Here are some of the new fees out of the OBBBA (the inaptly named "Big Beautiful Bill") that will make applying for humanitarian protections unaffordable for many:
🔹Asylum fee - $100 and is non-waivable. And an additional annual $100 fee for every year that person's asylum application remains pending. This effectively punishes applicants for the government's own processing backlogs.
🔹Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (humanitarian protection for children who are abandoned, abused or neglected by a parent) - $250 (at minimum) - there was no filing fee before
🔹Border crossing penalty - new minimum fee of $5,000
🔹Work permit application fee based on pending asylum, parole, or TPS: $550 - nonwaivable for first application; minimum nonwaivable fee of at least $275 for renewals
🔹Immigration court processing fees:
🔹 $900 to appeal to the BIA (Board of Immigration Appeals) - current fee is $110
🔹$900 to seek to reopen or reconsider an immigration judge's order - current fee is $110 or $145
🔹$600 fee for EOIR-42A cancellation of removal application for lawful permanent residents - current fee is $130
🔹$1,500 fee for EOIR-42A cancellation of removal application for non-lawful permanent residents - current fee is $130
🔹$5,000 fee if ordered removed 'in absentia' i.e. if an immigration judge orders someone who did not appear in court removed
These new fees became effective 7/4/2025, the day DJT signed the bill. Already this has caused chaos and confusion among clients, attorneys and government agencies as there was little to no time to institute these sudden changes. Expect applications to be delayed or outright rejected and deadlines possibly missed...
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Do you want to witness firsthand what ICE is doing in the immigration courts, i.e. eviscerating due process by moving to dismiss deportation proceedings so that they can place individuals into "expedited removal" and hence taking them into immediate custody and detention?
Volunteer to be a court observer. You do NOT have to be an attorney. Members of the public can volunteer to be a neutral observer, and then complete a short form documenting what they see.
This is an initiative by the ABA Commission on Immigration, created out of concern for this alarming trend in immigration court.
You can also volunteer as an observer on Webex (remotely), as many court hearings are done online.
I'll post links to sign up in the comments below.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
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A few days ago a client reached out to me asking if I can represent him in applying for US citizenship.
He hired me back in 2018 (7 years ago) to help him out of his immigration predicament. You see, he was placed into deportation proceedings in 1996 because a "notario" (someone pretending to be an immigration attorney) told him he could help him obtain a work permit. Unbeknownst to my client, the notario filed an asylum application on his behalf without his knowledge.
When the asylum application was not granted, the client placed into deportation proceedings. Although he was granted voluntary departure by an immigration judge, the client told me that he had little understanding of what that meant. He hired a series of attorneys, who filed motions to reopen his deportation order, but they were all denied by the immigration court.
By the time the client came to me, he was doubtful that anything could be done. I reviewed his immigration file, and advised him that while the chances were slim, we could try to file another motion to reopen "sua sponte" (Latin for “on its own”), requesting that the immigration court reopen his deportation order based on extreme hardship.
Normally, a respondent in deportation proceedings is only allowed a one-time motion to reopen (MTR). And if they already filed that MTR and it is denied, that is it.
But in my sua sponte request, I urged the court to grant our motion, based on compelling circumstances and a new pathway to immigration status that arose after his deportation case ended.
Incredibly, an immigration judge granted our MTR, and after his proceedings were reopened, the judge granted my client's application to adjust his status based on his US citizen spouse's petition.
He received his green card over 4 years ago, and is now eligible to naturalize. I am so excited to help my client with this last chapter of his immigration journey!
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Yesterday SoS Rubio announced that he would aggressively revoke the visas of Chinese students, including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and those studying in ‘critical fields.’
The inference from this announcement is that Chinese students are potentially spies or agents of China and not to be trusted (a trope that has been repeated throughout our nation's history). Chinese students make up 20% of all F-1 students in the US – around 275,000 Chinese international students in the US.
As a Chinese American, this attack feels so personal. It wasn’t too long ago that Chinese immigrants coming to the US to work building the railroad or work in the gold mines were subjected to racism and portrayed as sub-human and inferior. In the 1800s, there were riots against Chinese immigrants, fueled by anti-Chinese sentiment, leading to deaths, property destruction, and the forced expulsion of Chinese residents from communities. This animus led to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which to this day is the only law in the U.S. history to explicitly ban the immigration based on race and nationality.
According to the Pew Research Center, during the COVID-19 pandemic, about one-third of Asian Americans reported that they personally knew an Asian person in the U.S. who was threatened or attacked because of their race or ethnicity.
To be singled out solely on the basis of one’s chosen area of study or race / nationality is not only dangerous, but it goes against the very principles on which our country was built.
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My client just asked if she could hug me. We’re in the lobby of the federal building at USCIS NYC Field Office and just got done with her and her spouse’s green card interview.
Although the USCIS officer was nice, there were a lot of questions. A lot.
Questions that delved into minutiae. Questions that were already asked and answered but yet asked again. Questions that made one wonder “why is this officer asking about this?”
At the end of the interview the officer just gave the stock response of “give us 120 days to make a decision.”
It wasn’t a hostile interview, but it was long and exhausting. So after it was over, both of my clients just said they were glad I had prepped them extensively and that I was there to support them.
The officer also wanted to make some changes to some answers on the adjustment application form, which I strenuously objected to. I put my foot down and told her that the answers were correct as-is. Eventually she backed down.
If you have a USCIS interview coming up, prepare- no, over-prepare for it.
Interviews have definitely gotten harder in T2.
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Did you know that if someone enters the US on a J-1 exchange visitor visa and is subject to INA 212(e), i.e. the two-year foreign residence requirement, and subsequently applies for asylum and is approved, they are no longer subject to 212(e)?
Let's break that down:
A J-1 is a cultural exchange visa designed to promote cultural understanding and knowledge transfer. There are many kinds of J-1 visas, including for au pairs, foreign medical graduates, interns, trainees, etc.
Sometimes a J-1 visa has a 2 year foreign residence requirement, meaning that at the end of their J-1 program, the foreign national must return to their home country for a period of 2 years.
You can obtain a waiver of this 2 year foreign residence requirement under several different grounds, including a no objection waiver; an IGA [Interested Government Agency] waiver; a waiver based on exceptional hardship to a U.S. citizen (or lawful permanent resident) spouse or child; or a waiver based on persecution.
But if you applied for and were granted asylum, then you don't need to obtain a J-1 waiver. Instead, you are eligible to adjust status as an asylee and are no longer subject to INA 212(e).
I have several clients who initially entered as J-1s subject to 212(e), and subsequently applied for asylum. It's a relief for them to know that if their asylum application is approved, they don't need to obtain a waiver of this residency requirement.
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