The U.S. State Department has announced an increase in the application fees for a U.S. non-immigrant visa. Effective January 1, 2008, fees will increase from $100 to $131. The increase is related to the cost of new security measures. The full text of the State Department’s release is provided below:

Application Fees for Non-Immigrant Visas to Increase On January 1, 2008

Effective January 1, 2008, the application fee for a U.S. non-immigrant visa will increase from $100 to $131. This increase allows the Department to recover the costs of security and other enhancements to the non-immigrant visa application process. This increase applies both to non-immigrant visas issued on machine-readable foils in passports and to border crossing cards issued to certain applicants in Mexico.

Applicants who paid the prior $100 application fee before January 1 will be processed only if they are scheduled and appear for a visa interview on or before January 31. Applicants who paid the prior $100 application fee and appear for visa interviews after January 31, 2008 must pay the difference — $31 — before they will be interviewed.

The Department is required by law to attempt to recover the cost of processing non-immigrant visas through the collection of the Machine-Readable Visa application fee. Because of new security-related costs, new information technology systems, and inflation, the $100 Machine-Readable Visa fee is lower than the actual cost of processing non-immigrant visas. In fact, the $100 fee was already lower than the cost of processing non-immigrant visas when the fee was reviewed as a part of the cost of service study in 2004. The Department has been absorbing the additional cost. We are now collecting 10 fingerprints from each applicant, and the cost charged by the FBI to review those fingerprints no longer allows us to do this. The application fee has increased twice since September 11, 2001, the last time in 2002.

Earlier this year, our office sent an advisory to clients, friends and community members on our email list to inform them of a scheduled increase in immigration filing fees. We encouraged anyone thinking of filing for naturalization (citizenship) in particular to file if they were eligible. We submitted many petitions and applications for our clients just before the July 30, 2007, deadline.

Because of the increase in applications, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released an advisory stating that the tremendous increase in applications has created a backlog in their processing of fees and issuing of receipt notices.

To give perspective on the volume of cases received, USCIS reported receiving nearly 2.5 million applications and petitions, more than double the 1.2 million received in the same period last year. Of the 2.5 million applications, 1.4 million applications were for those seeking to be U.S. citizens.

Those waiting for applications to be processed will very likely experience a significant delay. USCIS is stating that naturalization applications filed after June 1, 2007, may take approximately 16 - 18 months to process. Prior to June, naturalization applications were taking only 6 to 8 months to process on average.

This backlog will need to be taken into account when applying for various “time sensitive” applications, in particular, advance parole, employment authorization (work permit) renewals and the like.

We’ll keep you posted with any updates.

NOTE: After you read this post, see the February 2009 update with current wait times from the Visa Bulletin.

The answer depends on whether you are a permanent resident (green card holder) or a U.S. Citizen. U.S. Citizens can sponsor additional family members that green card holders cannot sponsor. Additionally, U.S. Citizens can petition for a fiance/fiancee to come to the U.S. to be married, while a green card holder is not given the same privilege. The person filing the petition is called the Petitioner. The person you are filing for is called the Beneficiary.

What is the difference between an Immediate Relative and Preference Relative?

An immediate relative has an immigrant visa (green card) immediately available to them. An immediate relative does not have to wait for an immigrant visa number to be available. Once a visa petition is filed for an immediate relative and the petition is approved by USCIS, the visa will be immediately available. The wait involved for an immediate relative is due to the green card processing time. In contrast, a preference relative does not have the benefit of an immediately available immigrant visa number. A preference relative must wait for a visa number to become available which can be several years, even more than a decade in some circumstances. The preference categories and current average waiting periods are outlined below:

The wait times are determined by checking current priority dates. The U.S. Department of State posts the priority dates, monthly in a chart called the Visa Bulletin. The posted wait times can change from month to month. Countries such as Mexico, India and the Philippines have longer waiting times since the demand for immigrant visas are higher than in other countries.

Make sure you also read the February 2009 update on this post, it has information from the State Department Visa Bulletin.