Understanding the Asylum Program Fee: What Employers of Foreign Workers Need to Know

If you’re a business leader or HR professional handling immigration matters for your company, you may have come across a new fee when filing certain petitions with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS): the Asylum Program Fee. If the name leaves you scratching your head—especially if your case has nothing to do with asylum—you're not alone. So, what exactly is this fee, and why do employers bear the extra financial burden for humanitarian immigration? Let’s break it down.

Hi, I’m Loren Locke, an immigration attorney based in Atlanta, and today we’re discussing this new fee that’s been catching many employers off guard. Introduced in April 2024, the Asylum Program Fee applies to many employment-based nonimmigrant and immigrant petitions. Understanding it is crucial to avoid costly mistakes and delays.

What is the Asylum Program Fee?

Despite the name, the Asylum Program Fee doesn't actually apply to asylum cases —rather, it’s a mandatory cost shift designed to fund the government's administration of other immigration programs. Here’s how it works:

• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses this fee to cover asylum-related adjudication expenses for individuals who cannot afford those fees.
• Rather than increasing fees for individuals seeking humanitarian relief, DHS decided to spread the cost across a group widely perceived to have deeper pockets—companies filing immigration petitions.

This fee is tacked onto certain business-related immigration filings and administered as follows:

• For most cases involving H-1B workers (filed on Form I-129) or immigrant petitions for permanent residency (filed on Form I-140), the additional fee is $600.
• For smaller employers (those with 25 or fewer employees), the fee drops to $300. This also applies to self-petitioners in the EB-1A and EB-2 NIW categories.
• Some nonprofit organizations are exempt and pay $0.

The Asylum Program Fee has nothing to do with your company’s stance about asylum or humanitarian relief. Whether or not you employ asylum seekers is irrelevant—this fee applies because your organization has been deemed by default to have the financial means to help subsidize the United States' immigration program administration. The government projects that this fee will raise over $300 million a year. They can use that money for their asylum program, or elsewhere. It goes into the Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA), which funds adjudicating immigration benefit requests, including those provided without charge to refugee, asylum, and certain other humanitarian applicants.

Why Is This Important for Your Filing?

If you’re managing immigration paperwork for your employees, you already know how high the stakes are. Filing errors, including incorrect fees, can complicate and significantly delay a time-sensitive process.

Risk of Rejection:

• If you file with the wrong fee and submit a paper-based application, USCIS will reject the entire package.
• Rejected filings aren’t just frustrating—they can also derail your timeline. For example, if you’re close to a filing deadline (e.g., for an H-1B extension), this kind of mistake could lead to late filings and potentially disrupt your employee’s work authorization.

What Employers Need to Keep in Mind

While it certainly feels frustrating to pay for a program that isn’t related to your specific case, the Asylum Program Fee is here to stay—and I've never seen USCIS lower its filing fees. The following are some key takeaways to reduce headaches during the filing process:

• Double-check the fee amount specific to your company size. If you have 25 or fewer employees, you qualify for the reduced $300 rate. Nonprofits, check carefully whether you qualify for the $0 rate.
• Check with your attorney whether you could or should file your case online to minimize the risk of delay from a rejected filing.

For employers, these fees represent yet another cost in navigating a complex immigration system. Unfortunately, federal filing fees in general rarely, if ever, decrease, so we shouldn’t expect this particular one to disappear anytime soon.

Final Thoughts

Though it feels counterintuitive for an employer to foot the bill for asylum-related costs, this fee is now a reality for those filing employer-sponsored petitions with USCIS. By staying alert, double-checking your filings, and including the correct fees, you can avoid rejections and delays that could disrupt your business and your employees’ immigration journeys.

```