USCIS Fee Increases Enjoined (For Now)

The significant US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) filing fee increases were scheduled to go into effect today, October 2, 2020.

However, this week the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California preliminarily enjoined USCIS from implementing or enforcing any part of the USCIS fee schedule and changes to certain other immigration benefit requests. In other words, the fee increases and related changes cannot go into effect at this time.

While the rule is preliminarily enjoined, USCIS will continue to:

Accept USCIS forms with the current editions and current fees; and
Use the regulations and guidance currently in place to adjudicate applications and petitions. This includes accepting and adjudicating fee waiver requests as provided under Adjudicator’s Field Manual (AFM).

This could change at any time, so please subscribe to our D&G newsletter at for the latest information on the various legal challenges.