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Question on a payment for USCIS

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fthnm2005

Registered Users (C)
Folks,
Good to be back. It's been 4 years since I got my GC and visted this website. Therefore, I am not too familiar with the latest rules and procedures for obtaining a GC.

The reason I am posting this question is that my friend received a DV and is asking me to pay a visa fee $165 per person. I believe this must be something new, because we did not pay it back in 2010?

Does he have to make that payment before coming or is there an exception for some who don't have a credit card and can pay after they arrive here in the US?

When was this fee introduced?

Please help us as I need to make the decision of how to help him.
Thanks.
 
Answered in the other thread you posted in.

Yes, it's new, but it's the counterpart of them having reduced the DV fee from I think around $700? a few years ago to $330 now. There were a couple of lucky years inbetween where they got the lower fee without having to pay the USCIS fee.
 
Honestly, they should have kept the visa fee un-reduced. Who is gonna pay for their expenses? Most people who arrive with GC sit on welfare benefits paid for by the taxpayer money anyhow ($500-1000 per month, I know from my friends who use them) and they can't afford to pay extra few hundred bucks??? The more I hear of such changes, the more it makes me think that conservative republicans in congress may end up lobbying to cancel the DV all together. Then no more GC lottery would be issued and that would be end of it and would be bad...
 
fthnm2005 said:
Honestly, they should have kept the visa fee un-reduced. Who is gonna pay for their expenses? Most people who arrive with GC sit on welfare benefits paid for by the taxpayer money anyhow ($500-1000 per month, I know from my friends who use them) and they can't afford to pay extra few hundred bucks??? The more I hear of such changes, the more it makes me think that conservative republicans in congress may end up lobbying to cancel the DV all together. Then no more GC lottery would be issued and that would be end of it and would be bad...
Click to expand...

USCIS is self-funding. The fees go to pay for its own operations, which is also why the split the fee to more fairly reflect who pays for what.

Personally, while I like the idea of "diversity" in principle, I think it makes a lot of sense to get rid of it and replace it with visas that are aimed at attracting skills to the country like most other countries do...(I feel duty bound to note that I am definitely not a conservative republican, just a lowly economist who has done a lot of work on long term growth drivers, and while immigration is almost always a positive for growth it also depends on the skills base of the population).
 
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