U.S. — The Trump administration announced a plan on Monday to increase citizenship application fees and eliminate fee waivers for low-income applicants. The proposal would charge legal immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship an additional $570 in application fees.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued the proposed regulation, which would raise the fee for paper citizenship applications from $760 to $1,330. For online citizenship filings, the fee would increase from $710 to $1,280. The plan would also eliminate fee waivers for citizenship cases, along with a fee reduction option for immigrants whose household income is at or below 400% of the federal poverty line. Fee exemptions for service members seeking citizenship would remain in place.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, stated that the fee increases are necessary to fully subsidize the processing of citizenship applications. The department outlined that the fee hikes are also needed due to Trump administration efforts to more heavily scrutinize applicants. Application fees to ask USCIS to reconsider a citizenship request denial would increase by $645.

Department of Homeland Security officials noted that previous administrations maintained relatively low citizenship application fees to promote citizenship and integration. The agency indicated that the Trump administration is adopting a different approach. "Although DHS has historically limited the fees for (citizenship-related applications) to fulfill previous administrations' priorities of encouraging naturalization, DHS no longer believes naturalization benefit requests should get lower fees at the potential expense of other immigration benefits," the agency said in its proposed regulation.

Doug Rand, a former senior USCIS official, provided an assessment of the proposed changes. "The only credible explanation for jacking up citizenship fees in isolation is that Trump 2.0 is in a hurry to create even more undue barriers for legal immigrants," Rand said. This proposed regulation has not yet taken effect and must proceed through further steps in the federal government's rulemaking process. The public will have a 60-day window to submit comments on the proposed changes.

The Trump administration has sought to tighten access to legal immigration benefits. This includes adding more layers to the vetting process for immigration benefits. For citizenship applications, the administration has moved to more aggressively investigate the requirement that applicants demonstrate a "good moral character." The administration has also resumed a practice known as neighborhood checks, speaking to the neighbors and coworkers of those requesting citizenship. Additionally, the Trump administration has escalated efforts to denaturalize foreign-born American citizens accused of obtaining their citizenship illegally or through fraud, including cases where citizens are accused of concealing criminal conduct on their applications.