Under the proposed rule, the application for the H-1B visa increases from USD 460 to USD 780
Washington: The H-1B visas for high-skilled foreign workers popular among Indian tech professionals, will now cost more under a new proposed massive hike in immigration fees by the Biden administration, a PTI report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says.
The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.
Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
Under the proposed rule by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the application for the H-1B visa increases from USD 460 to USD 780, and L-1 from USD 460 to USD 1,385. The application fee for O-1 visas has been proposed to increase from USD 460 to USD 1,055.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that USCIS is primarily funded by fees from applicants and petitioners for immigration and naturalisation benefit requests.
These fee collections fund the cost of fairly and efficiently adjudicating immigration benefit requests, including those provided without charge to refugees, asylum seekers and certain other applicants or petitioners, it argued.
“Economists would note that fee increase on these visa categories would work against the desire of US policymakers for more workers to enter the United States legally,” Forbes said in a news report.
However, in this proposal, DHS would eliminate the additional biometric services fee in most cases by, including the costs in the underlying immigration benefit request fee.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that USCIS is primarily funded by fees from applicants and petitioners for immigration and naturalisation benefit requests.
The USCIS said the new fees would allow the immigration agency to more fully recover its operating costs, re-establish and maintain timely case processing, and prevent the accumulation of future case backlogs.
The agency receives approximately 96 per cent of its funding from filing fees, not from congressional appropriations, it said.
The proposed fee rule is the result of a comprehensive fee review at the USCIS. The USCIS generally publishes a fee rule biennially, and proposes these changes to account for the expansion of humanitarian programmes, federally mandated pay raises, additional staffing requirements, and other essential investments, a media statement said.
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