USCIS updates

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) just published a Federal Register notice announcing mandatory fee hikes across several key immigration forms for fiscal year 2027. These increases reflect standard annual inflation adjustments calculated from July 2025 through July 2026 under H.R. 1 framework rules.

The deadline to keep in mind is October 16, 2026. Any filing postmarked on or after that date must include the updated payment amount, or USCIS will reject the package outright.

Here is a quick breakdown of what is changing:

Annual Asylum Application: Bumping up slightly to $105 (from $102).

Form I-131 (Parole Fee): Increasing to $1,050 (from $1,020).

Form I-765 (Initial Employment Authorization/EAD): Raising to $570 (from $560) if you are applying for an initial work permit under Asylum, Parole, or Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

Form I-821 (Application for TPS): Moving up to $520 (from $510).

While these adjustments are relatively minor compared to major statutory overhauls, the strict postmark cutoff means precision is critical. Filing right before the mid-October deadline with old checks or outdated fee calculations will lead to immediate rejections, unexpected delays, and potential gaps in work authorization or temporary legal status. Double-check all fee amounts before mailing!

* * *

The Department of Homeland Security just dropped a major proposed rule aimed at the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program for international students. If passed, it introduces huge new costs: a $70,000 fee for a student’s initial OPT approval and $30,000 for any follow-up extensions (including STEM extensions).

But, here’s the twist --universities would have to foot the bill, not the students or their employers. A school would have to pay this fee before its designated official can even recommend the student in SEVIS or submit a work permit request to USCIS. Because the fee attaches to the university's recommendation rather than a specific job, it applies across the board.

DHS claims this price hike is designed to crack down on fraud, bad-actor employers, and "pay-to-stay" schemes while protecting domestic jobs. But if this goes through, it’s going to completely upend university operations and make it exponentially harder for companies to hire top international talent.

This new rule, if implemented, would have drastic real-world consequences, mostly impacting those institutions with legitimate reasons for availing the OPT program. For major universities with thousands of international students, these fees could easily reach millions of dollars. And in all practical honesty, these costs will simply be passed along to students, not just foreign-born but also the rest of the university’s student population via tuition increases and other costs.

Another effect is that in the long term, the U.S. will lose the talent and skills from top-level students and researchers toward other less-expensive countries that charge minimal and affordable costs such as the UK, Australia, and Canada. There will be a severe shortage in STEM talent that would have benefited the U.S. Corporations will suffer as well since OPT provides them to test out workers and evaluate them if they can be hired under H1B visas.

As with any other controversial and new immigration proposal rolled out by the Trump administration, this policy will surely be met by legal challenges.