A US district court judge has issued a preliminary injunction to stay the proposed board fee increase for a wide variety of visa applications.
After many backlashes against the hike of fees for US visas, Judge Jeffrey White, a district court judge for the Northern District of California has stayed the proposed fees that were to come into effect from Friday, October 2.
Eight non-profit organizations, including the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, which provides a variety of immigration-related services to low-income applicants, had moved court. They had challenged all the fee increases on the grounds that these fees were proposed and issued under officials who were not properly appointed to their positions and therefore fee hike rules were unlawful.
The San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) welcoming a court decision to halt the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) impending fee increases made a statement.
“We welcome the court’s decision to halt the fee increase and elimination of the fee waiver, and we encourage individuals to take advantage of this decision and continue to apply for citizenship or other immigration benefits for which they are eligible, ” Amir Naim, Immigrants Rights’ Attorney at CAIR-SFBA said in a statement.
