News Update - December 20, 2007

By Alan Lee, Esq.^†‡

Department of State Raises Visa Fees for the New Year

The Department of State (DOS) published an interim final rule in the Federal Register (FR E7-14646) on 12/19/07 Revising and raising the immigrant visa processing fee and the nonimmigrant visa MRV processing and border crossing card fees. DOS states the reasons for the fee increase have to do with the new 10 fingerprint biometric processing and associated costs. The immigrant visa application fee will rise from $335 per person to $355 per person. (This will traslate to $400 per person as the National Visa Center (NVC) of the Department of State charges the application’s issuance fee $45 at the same time. In addition, if the case is family based, a further charge of $70 for the affidavit of support is assessed.) The nonimmigrant MRV fee and the 10-year border crossing card fees will rise from $100 to $131. The new fees will take effect on January 1, 2008.

† The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.

‡ This article © 2007 Alan Lee, Esq.

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