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Green Card

Green Card Cost Skyrocket

By January 13, 2023January 31st, 2023No Comments

Migrants applying for green cards in the United States with hopes of adjusting their status are facing drastically high government fees. There has been a clear surge in application fees for visas and green cards, according to the USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services). For instance, marriage-based green card applications including the mandatory I-130 petition of behalf of a family member has doubled from $1,760 to $3640. Also, fees for accompanying children were supposed to be lessened, but they will not be decreasing moving further as their costs will be similar to adults’. Under this new fee proposal, families migrating to the United States will be met with significantly raised application fees, making it difficult to file for green cards. Not only has the cost for employment based-visas such as H1B heightened, but family-based immigrant applications are undergoing the same changes in cost.

The reason for this apparent increase in government fees for migrants correlates with UCSIS’ responsibility to review every immigration fee structure every two years. USCIS gains a large portion of their profitability from their filing fees, and it has not implemented new fees since 2016. Moreover, the staffing issues and abundance of applications requires a higher investment to be allocated to these causes. Therefore, UCSIS made the decision to increase their fees, a strategy that it claims will improve customer service and simplify managing the application backlog.

Jeelani Law Firm, PLC

JEELANI LAW FIRM, PLC is regarded as one of the top immigration law firms in the industry. We handle all immigration matters including family based adjustment of status/green card cases, citizenship filings, representation of businesses and employees when filing L1A/B Petitions, H1B petitions, and Permanent Labor petitions. Our firm also litigates immigration cases dealing with delayed adjudications as well as appellate matters before the U.S. Federal Courts, U.S. Immigration Courts, USCIS and the BIA. Given the complex nature of immigration law, inexperience can lead to many mistakes which may result in delays, denials, and loss of filing fees and valuable time. Contact our office and we will take care of the rest.