Last year, the One Big Beautiful Bill created a filing fee for asylum and an annual fee that asylum seekers must pay each year their application is pending. Unfortunately, the roll out of the fee payment system was a mess. It was impossible to pay the fee unless you first received a notice from USCIS or EOIR (the Executive Office for Immigration Review–the office that oversees our nation’s Immigration Courts), but some people were able to pay without receiving a notice. Other people were not able to pay even with the notice. Many people never received a notice at all. The fee was temporarily paused by a lawsuit, but then went back into effect. In short, the whole annual asylum fee (AAF) system is confusing. It’s also frightening, since failure to pay could result in your asylum case being denied.
For many asylum seekers, the window to pay the AAF closed before they could pay (or before they even knew they were required to pay). Recently, however, the window has reopened for some affirmative asylum seekers, and they have been able to pay the fee. Of course, this happened without an announcement from USCIS; we know about it only because some asylum seekers have reported that they are now able to pay the fee. We do not know how long the payment window will remain open, and so if you have not yet paid the AAF, the time to do that is now.