The Trump administration unveiled a plan Monday that would charge legal immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship $570 more in application fees while eliminating waivers and fee reductions for low-income applicants.
The proposed regulation by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would increase the fees for citizenship requests from $760 to $1,330 for paper applications and from $710 to $1,280 for online filings. Application fees to ask USCIS to reconsider a citizenship request denial would jump by $645.
The plan would also eliminate fee waivers for citizenship cases, as well as a fee reduction option for immigrants whose household income is at or below 400% of the federal poverty line. Fee exemptions for service members seeking citizenship would remain in place.
The changes won’t take effect immediately, since they’re part of a proposed regulation that still has to undergo further steps in the federal government’s rulemaking process. The public will be allowed to submit comments for or against the changes over a 60-day window.
In its plan, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, said the fee hikes are necessary to fully subsidize the processing of citizenship applications, especially in light of Trump administration efforts to more heavily scrutinize applicants. Unlike most federal agencies, USCIS is largely funded by the fees it charges.
DHS noted prior administrations kept citizenship application fees relatively low, compared to other benefits, to “promote citizenship and integration.” But officials said the Trump administration is adopting a different strategy.
“Although DHS has historically limited the fees for (citizenship-related applications) to fulfill previous administrations’ priorities of encouraging naturalization, DHS no longer believes naturalization benefit requests should get lower fees at the potential expense of other immigration benefits,” the agency said in its proposed regulation.
DHS said in a statement Monday that “[t]he purpose of the proposed rule is to periodically adjust fees to recover the full cost of their adjudication,” arguing “the current fees established under the previous administration fail to cover the cost of necessary screening and vetting checks under President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
Doug Rand, a former senior USCIS official during the Biden administration, questioned the rationale behind the proposed fee hikes.
“The only credible explanation for jacking up citizenship fees in isolation is that Trump 2.0 is in a hurry to create even more undue barriers for legal immigrants,” Rand said.
The U.S. government has long encouraged legal immigrants to complete the citizenship process, known formally as naturalization. Typically, those eligible for U.S. citizenship are legal permanent residents who have had a green card for three or five years, depending on their cases.
Citizenship applicants generally must pass an English and civics test, and fulfill other requirements, such as lacking any serious criminal history.
As part of its immigration crackdown, the second Trump administration has sought to restrict and tighten access to legal immigration benefits, including by adding more layers to the vetting process.
For citizenship applications, the administration has moved to more aggressively probe a requirement that applicants demonstrate a “good moral character.” It has also resumed a long-dormant practice, known as neighborhood checks, to speak to the neighbors and coworkers of those requesting citizenship.
The Trump administration has escalated efforts to denaturalize foreign-born American citizens accused of obtaining their citizenship illegally or through fraud, including by concealing criminal conduct on their applications.
