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.
Weeks after the White House unexpectedly derailed a bipartisan tax deal for electric vehicles, offshore wind energy, and other major green priorities, dozens of emissaries from the nation’s renewable energy industries and environmental advocacy groups are gathering in the nation’s capital to begin charting their green-energy push for 2020 — and to dissect what went wrong in the final hours of its 2019 influence campaign.
Here are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, January 15, 2020.
Elizabeth Warren made a vigorous case for a female president and stood behind her accusation suggesting sexism by progressive rival Bernie Sanders Tuesday night in a tense Democratic debate that raised gender as a key issue in the sprint to Iowa’s presidential caucuses.
Senior foreign policy officials from the last several presidential administrations gathered in Washington D.C. Tuesday for a series of panels and workshops aimed at creating a “roadmap for an incoming administration’s first 100 days in office,” according to the Center for American Progress.
The House is preparing to vote Wednesday to send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate to start the historic trial, several people told The Associated Press.
Here are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, January 14, 2020.
Floridians will not have the opportunity to vote on recreational cannabis in November 2020. Make It Legal Florida, the organization behind a massive push to put adult-use cannabis on Florida's ballot, announced it will instead "shift focus" to the 2022 midterms.
Here are the headlines you Need 2 know for Monday, January 13, 2020
Cory Booker announced Monday that he is ending his presidential run after he failed to qualify for the January Democratic debate.
The president of Americans for Tax Reform particularly liked the numbers that showed an all-time low for discouraged workers.
