If Donald Trump’s goal is to strain the immigration system to such a point that it merely serves as an avenue for the fast-tracking of deportations, he is certainly making headway. The barriers have been piling up: ending bond hearings for undocumented immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally, kidnapping people at their immigration court hearings and places of work, entrapping new arrivals who fail to register with the government, and imposing significant penalties on those who do not comply with removal orders.
In an added twist, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which unlocks unprecedented levels of funding for immigration enforcement and border security, creates a fiscal minefield of onerous processing fees and penalties. Most of these fees are new and cannot be waived, and the goal is not necessarily to mitigate the government’s giant budget deficit, but to price migrants out of entering or staying in the country, even legally.
For instance, seeking asylum—a legal right under U.S. and international law—now comes with a $100 price tag, and pending applications will cost asylum seekers $100 per year. As the National Immigration Law Center argues, the annual fee functionally punishes asylum seekers “for government-imposed processing backlogs.”
The list goes on. Initial work permits for asylum applicants are now accompanied by a $550 fee; the current renewal fee to replace expiring work permits was lowered from $520 to $275. Existing fees were also bumped up significantly; the $50 fee to register for Temporary Protected Status is now $500. The border-crossing penalty was increased from a $250 maximum to a $5,000 minimum. Anyone apprehended between ports of entry must pay the fine, including asylum seekers.
Nonprofit legal clinics providing pro bono services to members of immigrant communities are preparing for the worst. “It’s really devastating for our clients because they can’t pay the fees,” Beth Baltimore, director of pro bono and civil legal services at The Door, which offers free legal representation to undocumented youth in New York City, told the Prospect. “We’re just not sure what we’re going to do yet.”
The new Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) fee is particularly devastating. SIJS provides a pathway to legal permanent residency for undocumented individuals who are under 21 and declared a dependent by a juvenile court. Before Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law, applying for SIJS was free. The application now costs $250, though a fee waiver is available.
Meanwhile, nonimmigrant visas issued to students, certain workers, and tourists require applicants to pay a minimum $250 fee, which cannot be waived. This is a functional tax on international tourism to the United States at a time when travelers are already staying away in droves, in part because of horror stories about being caught up in Customs and Border Patrol dragnets.
“At a time when polls show more Americans rejecting mass detention and deportation, this bill ignores what Americans want and doubles down on punitive policies that do nothing to address the real problems in our immigration system including court backlogs, a lack of legal pathways to citizenship, and a broken U.S. asylum system,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, in a statement.
FURTHER AIDING THE DESTRUCTION of legal pathways to citizenship is the revised fee structure for filing appeals or motions to reconsider court decisions. The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) implemented the statutory fees from the Big Beautiful Bill in ways that increased filing fees by hundreds of dollars.
Data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University indicates that the immigration court backlog currently sits at approximately 3.5 million cases. The reconciliation package threatens to exacerbate the backlog by capping the number of immigration judges at 800 beginning in November 2028. Currently, there are around 700 judges. The legislation earmarks $3.3 billion to the Justice Department, some of which will be used to hire more judges, but given the forthcoming cap, EOIR may only see a portion of this total.
The backlog may imminently grow. In May, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) filed motions to “recalendar” thousands of administratively closed immigration cases. Administrative closure delays immigration removal proceedings by removing cases from a court’s active docket without dismissing them. Cases under administrative closure tend to involve individuals who are either awaiting immigration relief or have no criminal record. This allows immigration judges to prioritize more time-sensitive proceedings. “Many of the cases that OPLA is targeting have been administratively closed for years or even decades,” according to a recent practice advisory from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
As of April 4, the number of administratively closed cases totaled nearly 400,000, per the latest disclosures from EOIR. OPLA is allegedly seeking to reopen all of them. ICE did not respond to the Prospect’s requests for comment.
“The Trump administration is so morally bankrupt that they are making immigrants, who fear being deported at court, pay for their own deportations.”
Trump limited the administrative closure process during his first term by preventing immigration judges from temporarily pausing cases independently. The move resulted in higher docket congestion, more in absentia removal orders, and fewer opportunities for legal relief. Under Biden, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland vacated the Trump precedent and then finalized a rule that codified administrative closure, as well as other case management tools like discretionary termination. The rule remains intact, but it does not place any restrictions on recalendaring.
Sirce Owen, acting director of EOIR, issued an internal memorandum in April discouraging administrative closure and lamenting the Biden-era rule. As a result, immigration judges who administratively close one too many cases may find themselves in the Trump administration’s crosshairs.
Putting these cases back on the docket may expose people to new fees and penalties. If the court rules and the individual needs to file an application for relief, it will cost them. If they avoid court and it leads to a removal order, it will cost them. If they try to cancel a removal order, it will cost them. Longtime residents may not be able to afford this. It’s all part of raising the cost of living for any non-native American, whether they are crossing the border between entry points, going through the legal system, or in the country and contributing to society.
IMMIGRANTS ALREADY HAVE A TARGET on their backs. In New York City, the presence of masked ICE agents lining the halls of 26 Federal Plaza has had a chilling effect on due process. New Yorkers pursuing legal pathways to citizenship are faced with the impossible decision of whether or not to attend their immigration court hearing. According to Baltimore, fewer people have been appearing in court since mid-May, and as my colleague Whitney Curry Wimbish reported, court-watchers and immigration judges alike have also observed a noticeable drop-off in attendance.
Immigration judges may issue an order of removal in absentia if an individual fails to appear in court, and enshrined in the Big Beautiful Bill is a new $5,000 penalty for individuals who miss court hearings once they are detained by ICE.
“The Trump administration is so morally bankrupt that they are making immigrants, who fear being deported at court, pay for their own deportations,” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander told the Prospect. “The city and state must prioritize funding to protect immigrant New Yorkers.”
The choice to risk abduction at immigration court is not much of a choice at all, especially if what awaits are the “inhumane and dangerous conditions” on the tenth-floor processing facility at 26 Federal Plaza. Community organizers previously told the Prospect that ICE is using the short-term facility to hold people for multiple days without proper accommodations. In a July 22 letter, Lander and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams demanded the city inspect the facility to determine whether “the federal government is violating local building, zoning, occupancy, and fire codes.” (Mayor Eric Adams later submitted a letter to the U.S. General Services Administration demanding a formal investigation into the alleged violations.)
Noncompliance with deportation is especially costly. In June, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finalized a rule allowing for significant civil penalties against individuals who fail to depart after receiving an order of removal or accepting voluntary departure. The penalties include daily fines that, when adjusted for inflation, can exceed $364,000 annually. According to an email obtained by the Prospect, several legal organizations have been collaborating to provide resources to immigration attorneys whose clients are incurring these penalties.
As immigration attorneys assess the extent to which DHS is penalizing people under the rule, the tidal wave of fines and fees appears to be gaining amplitude. This comes as New York City deploys record levels of funding for immigration legal services as part of its budget for the 2026 fiscal year. Lander urged the city to “get the money on the street” at a press conference last week.
“These folks need lawyers before they are abducted and deported,” he said. “It’s like an awful game of roulette.”