Trump team hikes pay-for-chance-to-stay fee as part of immigration crackdown

The Trump administration has cracked down on immigration nationwide and on Long Island by arresting people on the streets, at their homes or even during routine court appearances.

Now President Donald Trump's enforcement team has produced a new tool in its ongoing effort to roll back protections against deportation: hiking the fees immigrants pay for a chance to get legal residency, asylum and other benefits.

For supporters, the increase gives the American taxpayer a well-deserved break, but for immigration advocates, the message from the Trump administration is clear: The new fees are a way to further curb immigration into the country, or incentivize immigrants here illegally or with temporary status to leave on their own.

A dysfunctional system

"It's one more way to prevent people that can actually fix their status" to gain legal residency, said Andrea Rodriguez-Tarazi, an immigration lawyer based in Bohemia. "It's like all these little bumps to prevent this dysfunctional system we have to not work further."

Supporters say the time was right for a fee hike.

"It's been overdue for them to be increased," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the  Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based group that favors stricter limits on immigration.

With asylum cases, for instance, "there is a lot of work involved, and the taxpayer shouldn’t be bearing the cost of it," Krikorian said.

The fee increase was part of Trump’s massive budget bill he signed into law July 4. In some cases, fees have doubled, tripled or more in the subsequent month.

For example, anyone filing for asylum previously paid nothing but now faces a fee of $100, plus another $100 a year while the case is processed. Supporters say it is a way for the federal agency that handles the applications to fund itself, as required by law, and will cut back on fraudulent use of the system.

A reasonable fee

Plus, said Krikorian, paying $100 for an asylum application seems reasonable.

"It’s not $100,000 or something like that," he said. "It’s not ridiculous."

Only three other countries — Australia, Fiji and Iran — charge fees to asylum applicants, according to the nonprofit National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago.

Ala Amoachi, an immigration attorney based in East Islip, said asylum-seekers and immigrants will likely be dissuaded from applying for legal status or other benefits for which they might be eligible.

"It's kind of unprecedented because the immigration fees were never kind of aimed at pricing immigrants out of actually applying for" legal status and other benefits, Amoachi said. "They should be reasonable fees for the processing of these applications. ... The whole goal is to be able to deport immigrants and put them off from the legal process."

Asylum applicants also must pay an additional $5,000 fee if they entered the United States illegally between legal ports of entry.

The fee for Temporary Protected Status, known as TPS, went from $50 (which previously could be waived) to $500. TPS is sometimes granted to people from countries where war, political upheaval or natural disasters have put their lives at risk.

The charge for an initial work permit for an asylum applicant went from zero to $550. For a TPS applicant it increased from $470 to $1,020.

Cost for juveniles

Applicants for Special Immigrant Juvenile status didn’t pay anything before; now they will be charged $250.The visa is for children who have been abandoned, neglected or abused by at least one parent.

In a statement to Newsday, the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the fees, said: "President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill couldn’t have come at a more critical time for America after the Biden administration’s full-frontal assault on our nation’s immigration system.

"These new fees, and the policies of this administration, will help deter frivolous applications of those bad actors looking to exploit our immigration system, including humanitarian and work programs," the statement continued. "These fees will additionally help fund enhanced screening and vetting measures to improve the nation’s national security and public safety."

They'll also be prohibitive, Rodriguez-Tarazi said.

Many people who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without documentation and who were fleeing violence or persecution at home have already spent thousands of dollars to get here, according to Rodriguez-Tarazi.

"It's just frustrating because any time you try to take the path that exists, they come up with a new way to either block it or make it much more difficult for people to actually do it the right way," she said.