A Mexican family traveled from North Dakota to Fort Snelling Tuesday to submit an asylum applications at immigration court, only to find confusion among court officials about new fees implemented by the federal government.
The married couple and their teenage daughter appeared before immigration Judge Audrey Carr, and were told they needed to submit their asylum applications as soon as possible. But as the family’s hearing ended, Carr’s clerk told the judge the family would now have to pay to apply. President Donald Trump’s new signature legislation signed into law July 4, the One Big Beautiful Bill, includes a new $100 fee to submit an asylum application, which used to be free.
Carr started working on signing a waiver for the family so they could submit their applications for free, but was told by her clerk that was prohibited.
The clerk also noted that there is no direction on which federal agency asylum seekers should pay when they submit their applications. Neither the clerk nor the U.S. Department of Homeland Security attorney representing the government at the family’s hearing knew which agency was accepting the checks.
“I can’t tell you who to pay,” Carr told the family. “We haven’t been told where the money is to be sent.”
Officials are adjusting on the fly to provisions in the new law that add new fees to some immigration applications and increase them for others.
The U.S. Executive Office for Immigration Review did not respond to a request for comment on the fees. The law allots half the fee to the office, and half to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to the National Immigration Project.
The law makes the United States one of three countries in the world to charge for asylum applications. The move puts financial strain on people who are already going through challenging times, said Yasin Alsaidi, an immigration lawyer in St. Cloud who serves as deputy director for Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid.
Asylum is a legal protection that can be given to foreign nationals in the United States or who come to the border and meet the definition of a refugee: someone who is unwilling or unable to return to their home country due to persecution based on identity or political affiliation. Generally, people are expected to apply for asylum within one year of entering the United States. In fiscal year 2023, 54,350 people were granted asylum, according to the American Immigration Council.
“It’s obvious we’re [the United States is] trying to prevent people from exercising a right that we have on the books, and that is claiming asylum,” Alsaidi said.
The law requires an additional payment of $100 per year the application is active, and charges asylum applicants $550 for a work permit, which was previously free. Several other immigration filings also had fees implemented or increased.
Fees raise concerns
There is a high bar for being granted asylum, and not everyone who applies is deserving, Alsaidi said. But the right to apply for asylum is clear, and people who apply are typically in financially challenging situations, he added.
The asylum backlog is long, with cases often taking years to resolve, according to the American Immigration Council. Now, people waiting in that system will have to pay $100 each year to keep their application active until it’s formally reviewed and processed.
“Imagine someone being in limbo for 7-8 years,” Alsaidi said.
Adding fees could lead to more hardship for people applying for asylum, according to Lindsey Greising, policy counsel for The Advocates for Human Rights based in Minnesota.
“Every time we see a fee for immigration services or roadblocks built up that make it harder for people to build up their cases, we see increases in exploitation,” she said.
Advocates are concerned the fees could push more people to take jobs with low labor standards and exploitative employment practices, Greising said.
Confusion at court
The Mexican family seeking asylum, who is not being named because they are undocumented, told Carr they had paid a man in Texas who claimed to be a lawyer to file their asylum claim. Carr told them no applications had been submitted on their behalf. That made them late on their asylum applications.
Carr told the family they should have filed an asylum application after their hearing seven months ago, when the court first told them no asylum applications had been submitted on their behalf.
The family said they contacted the supposed lawyer who claimed to have submitted their applications, and was told that the paperwork would be in the system when they went back to immigration court for the Tuesday hearing.
“Can we submit the application today?” the wife asked.
Carr said yes, prompting her clerk to tell her about the new fees. The family sat in silence while Carr, the clerk and the government’s attorney discussed the fee.
The family did not have an attorney representing them in court, which is not unusual for many immigration hearings.
New fees
The law increased existing filing fees for a number of immigration applications, including those for Temporary Protected Status and for parole into the United States. The law prohibits fee waivers in most cases. The bill adjusts all fees with inflation, meaning they will increase over time.
Here is a breakdown of some of the new fees, according to the National Immigration Law Center:
Asylum applications (previously all free)
- $100 application fee
- $100 annual fee
- $550 employment authorization fee, $275 for renewal
Humanitarian parole (previously free in many circumstances or up to $630 )
- $1,000 application fee
- $550 employment authorization fee, $275 for renewal
Temporary Protected Status
- $500 application fee (previously $50)
- $550 employment authorization fee (previously $520), $275 for renewal (previously $520)
Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, intended for abused children
- $250 application fee (previously free, eligible for a waiver)
Appealing immigration court decisions
- $900 appeal fee (previously $110)
- $900 fee to seek reconsideration of immigration judge decision (previously $110 or $145)
- $600 for lawful permanent residents to apply for defense for deportation (previously $130)
- $1,500 for non-lawful permanent residents to apply for defense of deportation (previously $130)
