by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes:
This post made me chuckle. We do charge for immigrant visas. Here is a fee schedule for USCIS. A work-based petition requires an I-140 ($580) and an I-485 ( $1070). A family-based petition requires an I-130 ($420) plus the I-485 ($1070). This, of course does not include attorneys fee.
Another includes them:
Having held 2 F-1 student visas, 2 H1-B work visas and (after 7 years) finally receiving my permanent resident card … are you telling me the $10,000 in legal fees I paid was supposed to be free? If you think successfully obtaining a Visa to reside in the USA is "free", think again.
Another:
… we already do. Quite a lot actually. I'm a consular officer working primarily on immigrant visa cases in an American embassy in a country where the average income is less than $1,000 a month.
Just to get in the door for the consular interview, there is an immigrant I-130 petition filing fee of $420 as well as a $330 processing fee and a $74 visa security surcharge. That's per person. A family of five coming to American would have to save for many months, sometimes years, just to get a chance to talk to me. And that is not counting how much they'll have to pay to get their medical examinations, their court documents and criminal histories and marriage certificates.
And God help them if these documents aren't in English, because then they have to take them to the price-gouging translators across the street from the Embassy. None of the forms provided during this process are in Arabic, so they may have to pay some cyber cafe shark to help them fill it out, which he will do poorly, sometimes resulting in disqualification of the entire case.
Oh, and none of this is refundable. You have to pay all of the fees upfront, whether the visa is issued or refused.
And don't forget that no one gets an immediate relative immigrant visa unless there is a marital or blood relationship with an American citizen or lawful permanent resident or some company who is petitioning for these people. Without that relationship, there can be no petition and no visa. If that prerequisite was done away with and anyone could apply so long as some extra fee was paid, I don't think that would change a thing. There's already an investor visa (technically non-immigrant) that basically lets the wealthy come and spend their time and money on some industry or another in the States, so long as they have more than half a million bucks to invest. And the fact is, with that visa, the wealthy can come and go as they please and could potentially adjust their status to lawful permanent resident if desired.
The issue is desperation and always has been. If your situation is desperate enough, some golden ticket visa that costs however many thousands of dollars is just as out of reach as a regular immigrant visa with all of its burdensome fees. Sneaking in or circumventing immigration law still remains the more viable option. The problem doesn't exist outside the United States where visas are paid for and issued. The "immigration problem" is inside the United States where people have, in one way or another, already immigrated to the U.S. and now live in a legal and cultural black hole.
Frankly, I think that a golden green card would make much more sense. Let's say $10,000 gets you a green card and that means citizenship in about five years or so. You'd have half a million applicants in the first week, guaranteed. Might at least put a dent in the national debt.
The Dish 