Hello, my name is Desiree Koger-Gustafson, attorney with Immigration for Couples. Welcome
to our weekly live attorney chat. If you are new to our firm or new to our Facebook page,
we regularly come on and share topics or insights about the immigration process or
respond to questions that we are hearing in our consultations, etc. If you find this helpful,
please feel free to comment like or share with relevant parties or friends that you feel like
may benefit from these live attorney chats also if you're watching us live please feel free to
comment in the comment section and if I see them while I'm on here live I will try to answer them
and then if for some reason you're watching on replay you certainly can comment in the
comment section and we will get back to those as well or you'll see them in another weekly
live attorney chat later on. I always catch you here Thursdays at 11 o'clock barring
some other major event, vacation, or a hearing as such so certainly feel free to check in with us
if that be the case. Today, I have two recent topics to discuss. One, you may have heard about
is the proposed rule changes mostly with regard to filing fees for USCIS. That came out January
4th of this year and basically any proposed fee increases or rule changes first come out
as a proposed for a notice-and-comment period so the public knows that these things are coming or
being thought of and it gives you time to respond. We essentially have 60 days after January 4th so
they'll put us into March to make any comments on the proposed fee increases. They are quite a bit
of an increase and we're looking at certain forms those for us for our firms purposes that we would
see be most impacted would be the travel Document, the I-131, the employment authorization I-765 and
the adjustment of status the I-485. Those are proposed to be increased by several hundred
dollars, they are also looking at a couple of different changes in regard to the fee structures
such as increasing or including the biometrics. Right now, it is an additional or separate charge.
They would include those in some of the fees instead of having them be separate. They're
also proposing additional other things but maybe separating out some of different costs for certain
types of forms that are used different ways. The I-129 is one that comes to mind I-360 is
always also used like that. Those forms are used for several different types of applications.
There are a couple that they're thinking about proposing different changes for each of those.
They're trying to move towards online filing. We've not found that as of yet to be super
helpful for attorneys and not work super well but I know they're pushing for that so we're hoping
they continue to make that more widely available and more user-friendly and more reliable but
they're looking to have decreased fees for those applications and those people that apply online.
They're also looking at some additional things like revising the premium processing from 15 days
to 15 business days. Little nuances that might make a big difference in the processing world.
You certainly can find these online. Certainly comment, they are required to review the comments
and then anything that is proposed, that becomes final then once it is reviewed and published in
the Federal Register then we would see those fees become increased incrementally from here on out.
We'll be looking for those to see if they finalize those rule, those fee increases and additional
rule changes. Subsequently, we are also talking about the opening of the consulate in Cuba. If
any of you have been following this, it has been closed since 2017 for a myriad of reasons. They've
been working on a skeleton crew essentially. A lot of the staff had been down-staffed
and I know this is going to be really good news for some of our clients and they are looking now
have been opening and are full staff and accepting all visa types. Obviously, you're still going to
be subject to limits and evidence and all of that but they're at least processing them.
There are some consulates that are only processing certain types so it looks like Cuba will be open
for all of those so that is really good news. I did see in our comment that there's a question
regarding expedited processing. We have a lot of information on that.
That is a very evidence-specific situational-specific so if I can take a
closer look at your question, it's pretty lengthy and then we'll try to do another additional video
on the expediting process in and of itself if we haven't already touched base on that so that kind
of leads me to our resources page on our web page so if you want more information certainly
go to www.immigration for couples.com on our resources tab we do have lots of different videos
over various topics of course we have a wealth of knowledge out there on our YouTube channel as well
um unfortunately we are not necessarily seeing um processing times thank you Carolyn for uh
watching and listening we are not seeing them get any better for the i-129f really for any um case
type currently they did go back up um wait times processing times here um just this past fall so
we're still kind of dealing with those hopefully now the holidays are kind of through we will see
um them push forward obviously hiring and keeping good staff those are all things that like I had
addressed in our other video I believe it was last week about just Congressional support and making
sure that Congress your Congress Representatives understand how the wait times and processing
times impact you because they do authorize their budget and their ability to then have resources
and to be able to hire people not to mention the administrative part of just getting things through
I know they are making strides and working on it so our hope is that that will then go
back down this spring now that we're through the holidays and hopefully before some vacation times
so definitely you if you've helped found this helpful please
um like comment and share you can certainly comment hashtag replay if you're watching
this on replay as well we do of course check our comments and questions and certainly reach out
um watch our videos on immigration for couples.com as well as YouTube and thank you all for watching
and I will see you guys next week same time 11 o'clock Thursday thanks so much bye-bye [Music]