On Jan. 4, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a that would increase certain immigration and naturalization benefit request fees charged by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. ÀÏÅ£Ó°ÊÓis working with the H-2B Coalition to highlight the burden this proposal will place on contractors and other businesses that rely on critical visa programs to support their workforce needs and , which are due on March 6.

This new proposed rule would substantially increase fees to file H-2B petitions. The rule proposes to increase named H-2B application fees from $460 to $1,080 (a 135% increase) and unnamed application fees from $460 to $580 (a 26% increase). Further, USCIS is proposing a new asylum program fee of $600 to be paid by employers who file a Form I-129. Thus, under the proposed rule, the total cost to file a named H-2B application is $1,680 and unnamed is $1,180, a 265% and 157% increase, respectively, by DHS calculations. Finally, USCIS is proposing to limit the number of named beneficiaries per petition to 25, requiring multiple petitions for larger named petitions.

ACTION REQUESTED: If ÀÏÅ£Ó°ÊÓmember companies have specific examples of how this fee increase would affect their businesses, please email Peter Comstock at [email protected] or Karen Livingston at [email protected].