The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) just released a new schedule of filing fees which greatly increases the cost of employment-based applications. For example, H-1B application fees would increase by 70%, TN application fees by 120%, L-1 application fees by 200%, and the H-1B lottery fee from $10 to $215. Employers are already paying the lion's share of USCIS fees across the board, including an extra $2,500 premium processing fee just to get their applications processed in a reasonable time. Most concerning, the USCIS will also add a $600 "Asylum Program Fee" surcharge to each employment-based application to help pay for the USCIS's unrelated asylum processing backlogs. The new USCIS fee schedule is subject to a 60-day comment period before implementation. Interested parties should submit comments by March 6, 2023, at https://www.regulations.gov.
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