The President of the United States, Donald Trump, enacted his "Great and Beautiful Law" this July 4th, Independence Day, approved on Thursday in Congress with a narrow vote of 218 in favor and 214 against. For immigrants, this is bad news because the new tax regulations will increase the costs of immigration procedures. Regarding these new fees, CiberCuba spoke this Monday with Florida immigration attorney Wilfredo Allen, who essentially believes that it will not be retroactive, but in practice, it will raise the cost of all procedures. "Things are going to get expensive!" he warned during his weekly program on Mondays at 11:00 AM Miami time on this platform.
"We're going to be very clear, many people are going to lose their asylum cases. The appeal used to cost 110 dollars. Right now, it's 900 dollars. If your residency is denied or if you had any benefits from USCIS, the appeal there is 900 dollars," said Allen.
"When you see that the appeals range from 110 to 900 dollars each, you realize how expensive things are getting. When you see that the application for residency is now going to be 1,500 dollars, you understand that it's quite a high price. If you are requesting some kind of waiver with the residency, the I-601 application is now 1,050 dollars. This is when you have to apply for your residency, but you need to request a waiver for a minor crime, for something that happened," the lawyer clarifies.
"We are talking about paying $2,550 to apply for your residency. The I-246, which we often use to suspend a deportation, now costs $600. The application for the 42A, which is for requesting a formal pardon for criminal offenses when someone is a resident, has risen to $1,500, and to reopen cases it’s $5,200. If you notice, these are not huge cases in court. I also know that, for example, applying for a parole costs $1,000. That doesn’t guarantee you will receive it; that’s just the application fee for that parole: it’s $1,000," he emphasized.
Willy Allen also explained that "applying for your first asylum, for a work permit, costs 550 dollars, and applying for asylum work permits afterward costs 275 dollars. You can see that expenses have increased. Why? The idea is also to make things more difficult for immigrants. Now, in almost everything you're doing, you can request to not pay the fees. However, it will also be very difficult for that to be approved, because applying to waive the fee doesn't mean that it will be granted."
At this point, he provided the example of someone applying for their residency while simultaneously requesting a fee waiver due to being low-income. "First, they have to approve your request for a fee waiver before reviewing your residency application. There are two steps involved. And that can always lead to some issues in the future. But yes, this Administration, in its efforts to intimidate and attack immigrants, is also raising the existing fees," Allen noted.
In response to the question of whether these new rates could be retroactive, Willy Allen warned that "the devil is in the details. Once it begins, we'll see if asylum payments will be retroactive or if they will start from today going forward, which is the correct approach, or how it will be handled. Surprises always come. Once the details come out, they always hit hard."
In any case, the lawyer clarified that he does not believe the fees will be retroactive. "It's very difficult because there could be some kind of conflict when implementing retroactive fees, which has never been done. This is not going to happen," he concluded.
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