UPDATE — The rule increasing fees and requiring new forms has been put on hold by a federal court. The positive movement in priority dates remains in place.

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Fall is ushered in with a number of immigration changes from USCIS.

• Much higher filing fees go into effect October 2 - any applications or petitions postmarked on or after October 2, 2020, must include the new filing fee! Overall, fees increase by an average of about 20%, but in some cases the fees are doubled. In addition, the rule with the new fees removes certain fee exemptions, changes fee waiver requirements, alters premium processing time limits, and modifies intercountry adoption processing. Yeah, that’s a lot of change in one rule.

• This one is more wonky - a number of forms are being updated with new versions that are required to be used for filings on or after October 2, but the new versions have not yet been made available. (Insert facepalm emoji here) This might not seem like a big pain point, but believe me - your immigration attorney is feeling it!

• In better news, the government’s new fiscal year starting October 1 brings a big jump forward in the backlogs of people waiting to file their permanent residence (“green card”) applications. We don’t know how long this will last, so individuals who have a priority date that is current in October should aim to file during that month.

We are here to help you keep track of the changes. Let us know if you have questions about these developments.