The US government is taking fees from immigrants and US sponsors for services that it has no plans to provide. The government took their money, and now it won’t even adjudicate their applications—in many cases, it refuses even to issue denials. The State Department is actually telling consular officers not to notify future applicants that the government has banned them.
During testimony before the US Senate, I called it the largest fraud in the history of the US immigration system. In fact, it is likely the first $1 billion fraud—a theft of processing fees for services never rendered. Even Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told me at the hearing that he was shocked it was happening. It is happening, and it is shocking.
The Policies Defrauding Legal Immigrants
This massive fraud is the result of three policies promulgated by President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Joseph Edlow.
- First, in December, President Trump signed a proclamation that bars legal entry and almost all visas for citizens of 40 countries (including the Palestinian territories) who were then outside of the United States. An earlier June proclamation had already partially suspended entry for 19 countries, but it had exempted immediate relatives of US citizens—the largest category of legal immigration. The upshot of these bans is that any citizens from these countries will be denied if they apply for an immigrant visa and most types of temporary visas. Nonetheless, consular officers are being instructed not to “counsel applicants or advise them in advance of the interview that they are subject to the [Proclamation].”
This Trump entry proclamation, which uses the “travel ban” authority under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), was based on the purported inability to screen those immigrants to the United States, and if his first term is any indication, this policy will likely never be rescinded. By itself, this policy blocks one in five legal immigrants from entering the United States. Among others, it covers major origin countries of Cuba, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, and Haiti. A disproportionate number of countries are in Africa.
- Second, in November, Edlow signed a memorandum that extended the 19-country ban to applications for benefits for immigrants already in the United States if the beneficiary is from one of the targeted countries. In January, he extended this processing freeze to the 40-country adjudication freeze, and he ordered a re-review of any approved benefits for individuals from these countries under the Biden administration. The benefits freeze—which applies to everything from employment authorization documents to permanent residency applications—covers even people who have lived in the United States for decades. It has no end date, and although it cites no statutory authority, it is unlikely to be rescinded. One lawsuit describes the devastating effects that this policy can have on immigrants in the country.
- Third, the State Department, through public statements and informal guidance, has frozen all immigrant visa applications for 75 countries. The purported justification for these restrictions is that immigrants from these countries use welfare at higher rates than immigrants from other countries. The announcement was just three sentences long and included no evidence to support its conclusion. It was later amended to exempt adopted children of US citizens, but not their biological children, stepchildren, spouses, parents, or other relatives.
The 75-country ban covers major sending countries of Jamaica, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Colombia, Nepal, Egypt, Ghana, and Guatemala. This policy also has no end date, and the most detail provided to the public is from State Department social media posts, which say, “The freeze will remain active until the US can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people.”
The legal justification is that immigrants must prove that they are not “likely to become a public charge.” But this is an individualized assessment, not a group-based one. There is no authority in statute to impose a blanket ban on all immigrants based on their nationality’s welfare use rates. Nearly all immigrant visa applicants must show the ability to support themselves and are ineligible for welfare for the first five years after they enter. All family-sponsored immigrants must have a financial sponsor who agrees to support them and demonstrates an income above the poverty line. The State Department has cited nationalities like Somalis who primarily entered as refugees, who are not subject to the public charge rule or subject to the usual 5‑year waiting period for welfare benefits.
The two policies—the 40-country presidential proclamation entry restriction and this indefinite immigrant visa “pause”—mean that citizens of 92 countries (including Palestine) are completely banned from receiving immigrant visas and immigrating permanently to the United States. These nationalities account for half of all legal immigrants to the United States entering from abroad. Over 320,000 immigrant visa applicants—based on 2024 flows—are now blocked. Once accounting for the immigrants in the United States, the number of potential legal permanent residents blocked rises to 561,000.
There is a fourth policy that has separately shut down the diversity visa lottery. The State Department writes, “DV applicants may submit visa applications and attend interviews, and the Department will continue to schedule applicants for appointments, but no DVs will be issued.” Once again, the State Department is letting people pay fees and go to interviews, while simultaneously promising not to process them. However, over 90 percent of diversity visa lottery winners were already banned based on the other three policies.
Fees to Immigrate
How much money has the federal government accepted to not perform the services required by law?
To immigrate to the United States or to obtain authorization to work or travel internationally, noncitizens must usually pay a fee to have their applications processed. USCIS’s immigration fee revenues were nearly $7 billion, and the Consular Affairs budget was about $6 billion.
The fees stack up. For instance, to sponsor a spouse, a US citizen must pay a $675 fee to USCIS to petition for their spouse to obtain lawful permanent residence. Then, the immigrant must pay $1,440 to adjust status from temporary to permanent residence. That application takes so long that people usually pay $560 for the spouse to receive an employment authorization document, so the total fees can add up to $2,675.
But the exact fees are extraordinarily difficult to track. Every application has a different fee. The fee amounts often depend on the applicant’s age, and which applications are required depends on whether the immigrant is the primary beneficiary or a dependent, such as a spouse or child. The government does publish detailed statistics sufficient to establish the number of beneficiaries affected, let alone the number of fees. Many statistics on applications lack even a breakdown by country. We also have no up-to-date statistics. We are forced to rely on 2023 and 2024 statistics because the current administration has simply stopped publishing most statistics.
That said, I made assumptions, which I believe will likely understate reality. That’s because it only includes people who would have otherwise been approved for a benefit in the next year, so it basically ignores the entire backlog of cases that the government may not get to this year, as well as everyone who would have otherwise been denied under normal grounds who are equally entitled to an answer. Regardless, it provides some insight into the enormous scale by which the government has bilked immigrants of their money.
Overall, we can estimate that the 2 million applications affected by the ban, which would’ve otherwise been approved, came with over $1 billion in fees. The fees came primarily from applications for work permits and filings to adjust status to permanent residence or immigrant visas—the two ways in which people receive green cards to stay permanently in the United States.
Cubans represent the largest group of affected applicants with nearly a million affected applications at a combined cost of $543 million. The second most common was Venezuelans, with 239,000 applications at a cost of $138 million. Nigerians, Afghans, Haitians, and Iranians are the other top nationalities. Interestingly, about 90 percent of the applications and fees come from countries targeted by the initial 40-country ban, not the later State Department immigrant visa restriction. That’s largely because the State Department charges much lower fees than USCIS does, and USCIS’s ban applies to so many different types of applications.
Congress should immediately require the administration to start processing applications and fairly adjudicate those applications without regard to a person’s birthplace. If someone cannot establish their eligibility, they can be denied under the law, but there is no reason to steal people’s fees and fail to provide the service the law entitles them to.
