On November 27, HIRC and the HLS Immigration Project (HIP) submitted comments on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ proposed change to the I-912 Form to remove the means-tested benefit as an eligibility option. Not only will this proposed change create superfluous work for USCIS, but it will also contribute to the many hardships facing asylees. In the comments, HIRC and HIP note: “In our experience the income-based fee waiver greatly increases the processing time of the application, forcing asylees to needlessly wait longer for their green cards. Many asylees have already waited years for their asylum applications to be adjudicated. Thus, the Proposed Change places an undue burden on asylees, who are both exceptionally vulnerable and deserving of fair and efficient adjudication of their applications.”
You can read complete comments from HIRC and HIP here.
We would like to thank HIRC clinical student Alicia Coneys ’19 for her help with these comments.