USCIS Fee increase- public comments
- Posted by Michael on February 8th, 2007 filed in Misc, Paperchase
It has come to my attention that the USCIS is looking to increase the fees on many of their documents- the one that concerns me and most likely those of you reading this blog is the I600. The current fee is $545 (plus fingerprinting) and the proposed fee is $670, an increase of $125. Normally I would be understanding of a fee increase- they are not pleasant but it’s a fact of life that things get more expensive, however in this case I feel this is completely unfair to those of us adopting from China. Almost everyone in this process has to “renew” their I600 as it is only good for 18 months. The renewal process consists of a completely new application- in other words we have to pay the price- TWICE. We have all tried in the past year to ask the USCIS for some relief, some sort of update process or extension but they refuse to help us, and now they want to increase the fee. Do they not want us to adopt children? I mean $125 more is just drop in the bucket compared to the $20,000+ that overall adoption costs, but since we already have to pay an extra $1,000+ due to having to renew the paperwork it really is a slap in the face. Those of you just starting or getting ready to start would have to pay an extra $250- $125×2.They could work with us here. Who would have thought, when you first started the process, that the biggest problems you would have encountered during this process as far as red tape would have been from our own government. I would have thought that a foreign communist government would have had a lot more red tape.
The USCIS is currently taking public comment on this topic. I would encourage you to take the time to contact them and let them know the unfairness of this- my attack is going to be to tie in the fact we can’t get any relief for a renewal with the fee increase. I will get some resources up here in the next little bit that you can use to read on your own and also to contact those in charge.
PS. There has also been an bill introduced to Congress again to extend the I-171H. It is HR 628. I will get information up about that too.
Please click the page about USCIS/Congress in the side bar for info/updates. http://www.thewynn.net/adoptblog/?page_id=281
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