Carol Cribbs Deputy Chief Financial Officer U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services U.S. Department of Homeland Security 5900 Capital Gateway Drive Camp Springs, MD 20746Dear Deputy Chief Cribbs: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce submits the following comments on the above referenced notice of proposed rulemaking (“NPRM” or “proposal”). The business community appreciates the fact that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) must periodically update its fee schedule to ensure that the government recovers the full costs associated with the provision of immigration benefits requests. However, many businesses are very concerned with how USCIS has proposed to increase its fees. The most significant cost increases for various immigration benefits are targeted at American companies of all sizes and across all industries. If this proposal is finalized as is, the exorbitant fee increases that would be imposed on businesses under the agency’s one-size-fits-all approach would have a profoundly negative impact on the U.S. economy. The insights that the Chamber received from its members regarding this proposal were resoundingly negative, as these fee hikes will only exacerbate their current inability to adequately meet their workforce needs. In particular, many small businesses fear that this rule would be incredibly devastating to their companies, as these fee increases will hinder their ability to compete in the marketplace. Many companies believe that USCIS fell short of meeting its regulatory burdens in formulating this proposal, specifically with regard to USCIS’s need to consider significant alternatives to the proposal under the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act. For the reasons stated below, we urge USCIS to rethink the approach it took in this NPRM, perform the necessary tasks to ensure the agency complies with its statutory burdens, and be more transparent in how it is formulating its fee schedule. To effectively accomplish these tasks, USCIS should provide stakeholders with a revised notice of proposed rulemaking to ensure that the public’s concerns are adequately addressed before USCIS finalizes its new fee schedule. Significant Fee Increases on Employers Will Adversely Impact American Businesses We heard from many companies claiming that the proposed fee increases in the NPRM would result in substantially negative financial implications for their businesses. Every company that provided input on this proposal acknowledged that USCIS has not updated its fee schedule in several years and that the agency must do so to ensure that it has the financial resources to adequately fund its operations. USCIS explicitly acknowledges that this proposal represents an overall weighted increase in service fees of 40% to ensure the full recovery of its operational costs, 1 but the cost increases that are to be imposed upon American businesses are (with few exceptions) significantly higher than the agency’s weighted average for all immigration benefit types. Examples of these inordinately high fee increases being significantly above the agency’s weighted average include the following: H-1B Registration fee would rise from $10 to $215, representing a 2,050% cost increase; I-129 Petitions for H-1B specialty occupation worker would rise from $460 to $780, representing a 70% cost increase;I-129 Petitions for E, H-3, P, and TN workers would rise from $460 to $1,015, representing a 121% cost increase; I-129 Petitions for O nonimmigrants of Extraordinary Ability or Achievement would rise from $460 to $1,055, representing a 129% cost increase; I-129 Petition for L intracompany transferee workers would rise from $460 to $1,385, representing a 201% cost increase; I-526E petition for an EB-5 Regional Center Investor would rise from $3,675 to $11,160, representing a 204% cost increase; I-829 petitions for EB-5 Investors to Remove Conditions on Permanent Residency would rise from either $3,750 or $3,835 (depending upon whether biometric services are sought) to $9,525, representing 154% and 148% cost increases, respectively; I-956 Regional Center Designation Applications would rise from $17,795 to $47,695, representing a 168% cost increase.Other key immigration benefit requests for the business community include I-129 filings for H-2A and H-2B workers and I-140 Immigrant Petitions for Alien Workers. Regarding the H-2A and H-2B petitions, USCIS chose to differentiate the cost for filing these petitions based on whether the putative beneficiaries of the petition are named by the employer. The proposal’s fee increases for these categories are as follows: H-2A Petitions for Named Beneficiaries would rise from $460 to $1,090, representing a 137% cost increase; H-2B Petitions for Named Beneficiaries would rise from $460 to $1,080, representing a 135% cost increase; H-2A Petitions for Unnamed Beneficiaries would rise from $460 to $530, representing a 15% cost increase, and; H-2B Petitions for Unnamed Beneficiaries would rise from $460 to $580, representing a 26% cost increase. With regard to I-140 petitions, the fee increase would raise the current price of $700 to $715, which at first blush would appear to be a minor 2% cost increase. However, USCIS created a brand-new $600 Asylum Program Fee that would be imposed upon the filing of any Form I-129, regardless of the nonimmigrant visa classification sought, and any Form I-140. This additional $600 payment per petition adds another significant expenditure to employers such that the overall fee increases for seeking these types of critical workers would have the following end results from a cost perspective: H-1B petitions would cost an additional $920/1,135 per petition, which equates to either a 200% or 247% total cost increase ; O petitions would cost an additional $1,195, a 260% total cost increase; TN, E, H-3, or P petitions would cost an additional $1,155, a 251% cost increase; H-2A Named Beneficiary Petitions would cost an additional $1,230, representing a 267% cost increase, whereas costs for H-2A Unnamed Beneficiary Petitions would rise by $670, a 146% cost increase; H-2B Named Beneficiary Petitions would cost an additional $1,220, representing a 265% cost increase, while H-2B Unnamed Beneficiary Petitions would rise by $720, a 157% cost increase;L petitions would rose an additional $1,525, representing a staggering 332% increase in the cost of filing the petition, and; Form I-140 would cost an addition $615, representing an 88% increase.Lastly, the fee increases for Adjusting Status to that under Form I-485, Extending or Changing Status under Form I-539, or applying for an employment authorization document (EAD) under Form I-765 are also very important to the employer community. While these fee increases are less significant than those outlined above, businesses believe that if USCIS considered other alternatives in compiling this proposal, the burden of these fee increases would be shared across the board in a much more equitable fashion than what was proposed. The Practical Impact and Concerns Associated with These Fee Increases As previously stated, the feedback received on this proposal was overwhelmingly negative. Several companies informed us that this proposal would add significant new costs for their company’s operations. Multiple multinational firms indicated that if this NPRM were finalized, their immigration expenses would need to increase by several million dollars to maintain their current operational capacity. On the other end of the business-size spectrum, smaller firms across a host of industries conveyed to the Chamber that these fee increases will be incredibly harmful to their companies. Many of these firms predict that these increased fees will prevent their business from growing, and in the most extreme cases, would have prevented their company from entering the market. USCIS makes a point throughout its proposal of restoring the balance between its two guiding principles in setting its fee schedule, those being the ability-to-pay principle and the beneficiary-