For people seeking work or an escape to a better life in the United States, it's going to cost about two times the current amount, following a move by the Trump administration to hike fees on various immigration applications.
Michelle Mendez, director of defending vulnerable programs at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), calls the move an assault on immigration.
"This rule, these fees that have increased will make it extremely difficult for individuals to become legal immigrants, specifically to become naturalized immigrants, to become citizens," Mendez told Cheddar.
The new fees, which are set to be increased in October, will also gravely impact the world's most at-risk populations seeking asylum in the U.S., Mendez added.
"$50 may seem to be a small fee for many of us. We have to understand that asylum seekers leave their countries, they flee their countries with practically nothing," she said.
While news of the increased fees may be looked on as damning, Mendez said the move is on par with the Trump administration's previous moves to eliminate "access to the legal immigration process."
"During the [presidential] campaign, the rhetoric was very much focused on illegal immigration. We knew that that actually meant they were going to attack illegal and legal immigration," she said.
For Mendez, the idea of increasing fees and making the process even more difficult for people who want to become American is a jab at the foundation upon which the country was built.
"When we limit the opportunity for people to be engaged in the process by being citizens, that really undermines our democracy. That really undermines our democratic process," she stated.
Cheddar News' Michelle Castillo spoke to former Kipp alumni and Kipp Affirm Middle School principal Dominique Mejia about the precautions it is taking to keep everyone healthy and why it was so important to return back to in-person instruction.
America’s employers added just 235,000 jobs in August, a modest gain after two months of robust hiring at a time when the delta variant’s spread has discouraged some people from flying, shopping and eating out.
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 340,000, a pandemic low, another sign that the job market is steadily rebounding from the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
A group of Democratic senators quietly put forth a bill that could reshape domestic manufacturing in the United States.
The nation’s most far-reaching curb on abortions has taken effect in Texas, with the Supreme Court silent so far on an emergency appeal to put the law on hold.
Cheddar asked its Gen Z and Millennial-aged Facebook and Instagram users about several topics including how they use social media, buying cryptocurrency, and the future job market.
Social Security and Medicare, the government’s two biggest benefit programs, remain under intense financial pressure with the retirement of millions of baby boomers and a devastating pandemic putting increased pressures on the two programs’ finances.
The speed limit for most of Paris is now 30 kilometers per hour (less than 19 miles per hour). The new rule takes effect Monday almost everywhere in the city except for a few wide avenues like the Champs-Elysees and the bypass circling the capital.
Cheddar's Chloe Aiello reports on Queens residents who mostly are voicing support for keeping the Open Streets program in New York City even after the pandemic.
Brazil, the country with the most freshwater resources in the world, has lost 15% of its surface water over the last three decades.
