A federal judge in California blocked a Trump administration rule that would've hiked up naturalization fees by more than 80% and charged a first-time fee for asylum applicants, days before the regulation was set to take effect.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for the country's immigration and naturalization system, updated and finalized its fee structure after a nearly nine-month review earlier this year.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White granted a motion Tuesday that will stop U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from imposing the fee changes that were expected to go into effect Friday. Though the ruling was made in California, the decision calls for the fees to be blocked across the country because of the various local and state governments that argued against the fee changes.

USCIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

However in another recent decision USCIS was permitted to re-institute the I-944 and the Trump Public Charge Rules that more aggressively target legal immigration by family members to the US. 

With that said, the same decision that blocked the USCIS fee increase also created doubt that the any changes made by the Trump Administration since the resignation of Kristen Nielson in in April 2019 were not lawful as Trump failed to follow federal law in appointing her replacement Chad Wolf. Therefore all changes done by Chad Wold since early 2019 could well be found to be invalid as Chad Wolf was not actually lawfully in charge of the Department of Homeland Security when actions he worked on were ordered. 

In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is extending the flexibilities it announced on March 30, 2020, to assist applicants, petitioners, and requestors who are responding to certain:

Requests for Evidence;

Continuations to Request Evidence (N-14);

Notices of Intent to Deny;

Notices of Intent to Revoke;

Notices of Intent to Rescind and Notices of Intent to Terminate regional investment centers;

Motions to Reopen an N-400 Pursuant to 8 CFR 335.5,

Receipt of Derogatory Information Aer Grant;

Filing date requirements for Form N-336,

Request for a Hearing on a Decision in Naturalization Proceedings (Under Section 336 of the INA);

or Filing date requirements for Form I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion.

Notice/Request/Decision Issuance Date: This flexibility applies to the above documents if the issuance date listed on the request, notice, or decision is between March 1, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2021, inclusive.

Response Due Date: USCIS will consider a response to the above requests and notices received within 60 calendar days aer the response due date set in the request or notice before taking any action. Additionally, we will consider a Form N-336 or Form I-290B received up to 60 calendar days from the date of the decision before we take any action

Fiance Visa Processing is functioning again for case already approved by USCIS, but not yet forwarded to the Embassy or Consulate. US Embassy and Consulates Posts will resume K visa application processing as local conditions and resources allow.

Applicants should check the website of their nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate for updates on what services that post is currently able to offer. Where an embassy indicated on its website that is allowing routine visa scheduling we are recommeding that clients contact the Post directly for the case file to be forwarded from the National Visa Center (NVC) to the Post for interview scheduling.

The process for interview will vary widely Post to Post, so in each case it will be important to keep in close contact with the local post and follow their local instructions closely to ensure timely visa stamping interview scheduling.

The 1-129 Petition for Alien Fiance(e) is typically valid for four months; however, consular officers may revalidate the 1-129 petition in four month increments. For most cases impacted by the suspension of routine visa services or COVID-19 travel restrictions it will not be necessary to file a new 1-129 petition.

USCIS will not stop paying its employees... Rather USCIS will find "cost savings" in failing to actually work in a reasonable time frame on the cases that are submitted for review. 

How bad could this be? We don't know yet. 

However USCIS is now quoting that an Employment Authorization Document that took 45-90 days to process prior to Trump for legally working in the US will now take approximately 28.5 MONTHS to 37 MONTHS to be produced.... and on October 2 you will even need to pay extra for this application....

This begs the question. Is US immigration even open for business if you need to wait three [3] years for a work card to begin working? 

The Trump Administration's message here is clear. If you want to end all legal immigration to the US vote for Trump in 2020. The best and the brightest will move away, and the good jobs will follow them out of the US.

With four more years of Trump, US workers will begin immigrating elsewhere for jobs and opportunity as large corporations will see no need to staff in such an inhospitable, anti-international, and hateful climate. 

Bottom line for now: we can expect delays in every facet of immigration processing, and if Trump is re-elected in November....

USCIS, in yet another legal loss for its unconscionable conduct during the Trump Administration and during the pandemic, was forced by the courts to agree to expand the evidence for proof or employment eligibility based on USCIS's failure to timely print and mail out EAD cards after their approval.

As a result, employees may use Form I-797, Notice of Action, with a Notice date on or after December 1, 2019 just as they would an EAD card. 

Employees may present their Form I-797 Notice of Action showing approval of their I-765 application as a list C document for Form I-9 compliance until at least December 1, 2020.

See this update on I-9 Central https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-verification-during-ead-production-delays-due-to-covid-19:

The Trump Administration has significantly changed the USCIS fee schedule by adjusting fees by a weighted average increase of 20 percent, adding new fees, establishing multiple fees for nonimmigrant worker petitions, and limiting the number of beneficiaries for certain forms.

The rule is effective 10/2/20. Any application, petition, or request postmarked on or after this date must be accompanied with the fees established by this final rule. (85 FR 46788, 8/3/20)

In addition to adjusting fees, the final rule removes certain fee exemptions, limits fee waivers, alters premium processing time limits, and modifies certain intercountry adoption processing.

Some of USCIS’s forms will change. USCIS will post the new and revised forms online 30 days before the new rule goes into effect. These forms include:

• Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker;
• Form I-600/I-600A, Supplement 3, Request for Action on Approved Form I-600/I-600A;
• Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization; and
• Form I-912, Request for a Fee Waiver.

USCIS will provide a grace period of up to 60 days in which it will accept both the previous and the new versions of certain forms as long as payment of the new, correct fees accompanies the forms. Applicants and petitioners must use the new or revised form by Oct. 2, 2020.

The claim: Trump banned welfare for some immigrants, which will save $57.4 billion a year

President Donald Trump's agenda has fueled a stream of immigration-related misinformation. 

A claim that Trump banned welfare for immigrants in the U.S. illegally, which will save $57.4 billion per year, has circulated on Facebook and resurfaced in late May. But this claim is false for a couple of reasons.

First, Trump didn’t ban welfare for immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Undocumented immigrants have been ineligible for most federal programs since before Trump took office. 

Second, the “$57.4 billion” figure comes from a 2017 study that measured the economic cost of general public services at the state and local level of immigrants who came to the country both legally and illegally and their children. So this measurement includes all immigrants, not just those here illegally, as the Facebook post claims. Researchers attributed most of the $57.4 billion to education, PolitiFact reported.

Examining '$57.4 billion' 

The National Academies published in 2017 a 618-page report by the Committee of National Statistics that details the economic impact of immigration in the United States.

The report averaged data from 2011-13 and concluded that first-generation immigrants (foreign-born residents) and their dependents (children) cost state and local governments $57.4 billion, with most of the expense going to education. 

But researchers relied on data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, which according to the professor who chaired the panel of researchers, barred them from differentiating between types of immigration, PolitiFact reported. So their estimate includes immigrants who came to the country legally and illegally. That's not what the Facebook user claimed.

The Trump administration must begin accepting new applications for the Obama-era program that shields undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children from deportation that do not have a criminal record, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The order comes nearly a month since the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration's attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. That ruling emphasized that the administration failed to provide an adequate reason to justify scrapping DACA.

Judge Paul Grimm of the US District Court for the District of Maryland said Friday that the program is to be restored to its "pre-September 5, 2017 status," meaning the status quo before President Donald Trump tried to terminate it, thereby giving hundreds of thousands of DACA-eligible immigrants the opportunity to apply.

However it may still be wise before filing a new, first time DACA application to wait until there is better guidance issued by USCIS to ensure proper filing. 

To qualify for DACA one must:

1. Have entered the United States under the age of 16,
2. Be currently enrolled in school, have graduated high school (or GED), OR willing and eligible to serve in the military,
3. Have been in the United States since June 15, 2007, AND
4. Have a minimal criminal record. (No felonies, DUI's, or high-level misdemeanors. Minor traffic and most minor misdemeanor crimes should not cause a problem.)

To learn more about filing for DACA click here...

Expect Delays in EAD/AP card and Green Card Production. USCIS litterally turned off the printing presses in June.

SEVP modifies temporary exemptions for nonimmigrant students taking online courses during fall 2020 semester