January 2023: USCIS Proposes Significant Fee Increases for Immigration Services

Update Applicable to:
All employers.

What happened?
On January 4, 2023, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a proposed rule to increase fees for most immigration benefit requests. If implemented, employers will pay significantly more for most nonimmigrant and immigrant filings. 

What are the details?
The fee increases project to boost revenues by over $4.5 billion, providing USCIS with the much-needed resources the agency claims are necessary to “improve service levels.”   The USCIS is funded mainly by these user filing fees, as opposed to appropriations, which fund other agencies like the Department of Labor (DOL).  

The 60-day comment period on the proposed rule began on January 4, 2023, and it continues through March 6, 2023. The new fee rule will not go into effect until after received comments are reviewed, and the final rule is published in the Federal Register.

For more information, please see the links below:

Proposed Rules

Article 1 – Article 2

What do employers need to do?
Employers should review the links provided above and be on the lookout for any more news regarding the outcome of the comment period come early March. Vensure will continue to provide more updates once more news has been received.