Sec. 301. Immigration service fees
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Subsection
(m)of section 286 of the Immigration and Nationality Act ( 8 U.S.C. 1356(m) ) is amended to read as follows: Except as provided in paragraph
(2)and notwithstanding any other provision of law, all adjudication fees as are designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security in regulations shall be deposited as offsetting receipts into a separate account entitled Immigration Examinations Fee Account in the Treasury of the United States, whether collected directly by the Secretary or through clerks of courts. All fees received by the Secretary of Homeland Security from applicants residing in the Virgin Islands of the United States, or in Guam, under this subsection shall be paid over to the treasury of the Virgin Islands or to the treasury of Guam, respectively. All fees received by the Secretary of Homeland Security from applicants residing in the Virgin Islands of the United States, or in Guam, under this subsection shall be prohibited for use to cover the cost associated with— the civil revocation of naturalization; Operation Second Look; Operation Janus; any and all activities and operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations; and any other activity or operation that is not directly related to adjudications for immigration benefits. Subject to subparagraph (B), the Secretary of Homeland Security may set fees for providing adjudication and naturalization services at a level that will— ensure recovery of the full costs of providing such services, or a portion thereof, including the costs of naturalization and similar services provided without charge to asylum applicants or other immigrants; and recover the full cost of administering the collection of fees under this paragraph, or a portion thereof. The Secretary of Homeland Security may not increase any fee under this paragraph above the level of such fee on January 1, 2019, until— the Secretary submits to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives a report that— identifies the direct and indirect costs associated with providing adjudication and naturalization services, and distinguishes such costs from immigration enforcement and national security costs; identifies the costs allocable to providing premium processing services to business customers prescribed by section 286(u) of this Act; describes the extent to which the fee prescribed in that section is set at a level that ensures full recovery of those costs; and identifies the amount of funding that is being allocated for the infrastructure improvements in the adjudications and customer-service processes as prescribed by that section; and contains information regarding the amount the fee will be increased; and a period of 60 days has expired beginning on the date that the report in clause
(i)is received by the committees described in such clause. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall report to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives on a quarterly basis the following— for adjudications, when the processing time of more than ten percent of any single category of immigration benefits surpasses the agency’s stated processing goal as of January 1, 2019; when the processing time of more than 5 percent of applications for legal permanent residence surpass 150 days; and when the processing time of more than 5 percent of applications for naturalization surpass 150 days. Notwithstanding the provisions of this Act or any other law, the following fee waivers shall apply: In the case of an alien whose income is less than 150 percent of the Federal poverty line, no fee shall be charged or collected for an application, petition, appeal, motion, service or other service described in section 286(m) or for the biometrics capture or background check associated with such services. In the case of an alien whose income is less than 250 percent of the Federal poverty line, not more than 50 percent of the applicable fee shall be charged or collected for an application, petition, appeal, motion, service or service described in section 286(m). In the case of an alien under financial hardship due to extraordinary expenses or other circumstances affecting his or her financial situation to the degree that he or she is unable to pay the fee, no fee shall be charged or collected for an application, petition, appeal, motion, service or other service described in section 286(m) or for the biometrics capture or background check associated with such services. No fee shall be charged for a fee waiver request described in subparagraph (A). The fee for employment-based petitions and applications prescribed by subsection
(u)may not be waived. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall consider the receipt of means-tested benefits as a criterion for the purpose of demonstrating eligibility for a fee waiver under subparagraph (A). An alien requesting a waiver of fees under subparagraph
(A)may submit either a form as prescribed by the Secretary or an applicant-generated, written request for permission to have their immigration benefit request processed without payment of the required fee. In this subsection, the term Federal poverty line has the meaning given such term by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, as revised annually by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in accordance with section 673(2) of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 ( 42 U.S.C. 9902 ). . It is the sense of Congress that— the Secretary of Homeland Security should set fees under section 286(m)(34) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ( 8 U.S.C. 1356(m)(3) ), as amended by subsection
(a)of this section, at a level that ensures recovery of only the direct costs associated with the services described in such section 286(m)(34); and Congress should appropriate to the Secretary of Homeland Security such funds as may be necessary to cover— the indirect costs associated with the services described in such section 286(m)(3); the adjudication of refugee and asylum processing; the costs of administering the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements
(SAVE)Program; the adjudication of naturalization applications not covered in full by the fees paid by applicants; the reduction or elimination of fees granted to fee waiver applicants; and grants to public and private nonprofits for the purposes of citizenship and training. Section 286 of the Immigration and Nationality Act ( 8 U.S.C. 1356 ) is amended— in subsections (d), (e), (f), (h), (i), (j), (k), (l), (n), (o), (q), (t), and (u), by striking Attorney General each place it appears and inserting Secretary of Homeland Security ; and in subsection (r)— in paragraph (2), by striking Department of Justice and inserting Department of Homeland Security ; and in paragraphs
(3)and (4), by striking Attorney General each place it appears and inserting Secretary of Homeland Security .
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