Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,
The Trump administration on June 23 proposed increasing the cost of becoming an American citizen in a move that would nearly double the price of naturalization.
The proposal would raise the government’s fee for filing an online naturalization application form, the N-400, from $710 to $1,280, an 80-percent increase, according to the proposal from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.
For paper filings of the N-400, DHS said that it wants to raise the fee from $760 to $1,330, an increase of 75 percent.
For online filings of the N-336, a form requesting a hearing on naturalization proceedings, the fee would increase from $780 to $1,425, an 83 percent increase.
The paper filing fee for Form N-336 would rise from $830 to $1,475, a 77.7-percent increase.
“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,” DHS said in its proposed regulation.
DHS officials also said they were moving to remove some fee waivers for poorer applicants. Those waivers would be given only to people who are trying to become citizens by joining the U.S. military, it said.
Should the proposal be accepted, according to the agency, the increases in fees would bring in more than $430 million each year from prospective citizens. It added that around 1 million people seek to become naturalized citizens each year.
The decision drew some pushback from the American Immigration Council. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a fellow with the group, said in a post on X that he believes the DHS proposal is targeting people who have green cards, or permanent residency status, from becoming American citizens.
“The U.S. government for years tried to keep the costs artificially low to encourage more people with green cards to apply for citizenship,” he wrote. “No more, it seems!”
DHS will be accepting public comments until Aug. 24, 2026.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump’s administration has tightened rules around legal immigration and naturalization. In May, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said it would require immigrants seeking green cards to apply from their home country.
“We’re returning to the original intent of the law to ensure aliens navigate our nation’s immigration system properly,” USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said in a statement last month.
“This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes. When aliens apply from their home country, it reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally after being denied residency.”
Weeks before that, DHS said that immigrants who have made statements that it deems extremist would face closer scrutiny from immigration officials, with a spokesperson saying that such comments “may raise serious concerns for USCIS personnel reviewing an applicant’s file, including espousing terrorist ideologies, expressing hatred for American values, advocating for the violent overthrow of the United States government, or providing material support to terrorist organizations.”