USCIS RELEASES PROPOSED FEE INCREASES FOR MULITPLE FORMS TO OFFSET COST OF ASLYUM ADJUDICATION

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published a proposal last week of certain fee increases that they intend to implement as a way to increase their ability to fund the asylum program. A fee of $600 is expected to be paid by employers who file either a Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, or Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker. This increase of $600 would be in addition to processing fees for those petitions. Additional increases include changes to paper filing of Applications for Employment Authorization from $410 to $650, H-1B Pre-Registration fees from $10 to $215, I-129 Petition for H-1 Nonimmigrant Worker from $460 to $780, I-129 for L-visas from $460 to $1,385, I-129 for O visas from $460 to $1,055.

NEW STUDY FINDS THAT IMMIGRANTS OUT-INNOVATE NATIVE-BORN AMERICANS

In a recently released working paper, a group of economists sifted through patent records and the Social Security numbers of innovators between 1990 and 2016. They were able to find which of these holders were native U.S.C.'s and which were immigrants by comparing the date of their receiving SSNs. Native Unites States citizens receive their SSN at birth. A key figure that was found was roughly 36% of patented innovations in America are invented by immigrants. Similarly, it was found that the inventions attributed to immigrants were more often cited, which suggests that they were notably valuable to the pertinent field and were also found to have more financial value.

BIDENS NEW ASYLUM RULES THREATEN THE SAFETY OF ASYLUM SEEKERS AND OBJECTIVITY OF THE UNITED STATES LONG-STANDING ASYLUM PROCESSES

Biden has released new immigration restrictions which contain several criteria that will place more stringent demands on those applying for asylum in the United States. The new humanitarian parole program applies to people from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua and will only allow 30,000 people per month total from these four countries to be eligible for humanitarian parole. To be eligible, asylum seekers from these countries will be required to have a financial sponsor who can support them for two years, enter through a legitimate port of entry, apply for the status online before they arrive and pass vigorous vetting. The Department of Justice and DHS have also proposed a rule that has yet to go into effect but that will required migrants applying for asylum in the United States to have first attempted to be granted refuge status in another country through which they travelled on their way to the United States.