Rep. Salinas Leads Lawmakers Demanding DHS Withdraw Interim Final Rule Threatening Asylum Seekers

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congresswoman Andrea Salinas (OR-06) led a group of 24 lawmakers in sending a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) demanding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) withdraw or significantly revise its Interim Final Rule (IFR) on the annual asylum fee. The letter warns that the policy will destabilize hundreds of thousands of people, harm key industries, and undermine fundamental legal protections.

The IFR establishes a punitive and unlawful fee collection system for asylum seekers. If an asylum seeker fails to pay, USCIS automatically rejects their asylum application and denies their work permit, leaving them unable to legally work and at a heightened risk of deportation. Furthermore, DHS began implementing the rule without first considering responsible alternatives and without providing the public an opportunity to comment.

The lawmakers call on DHS to rescind or meaningfully change the rule and to thoroughly consider public input before moving forward.

Click here or see below for the full letter.

Dear Director Edlow and Mr. Good:

We write to strongly oppose the interim final rule, USCIS Immigration Fees and Related Procedures Required by H.R.1 Reconciliation Bill (the "IFR" or "rule"), published at 91 Fed. Reg. 22,952 (Apr. 29, 2026). The IFR threatens to destabilize hundreds of thousands of people, cause significant economic harm to key industries, and undermine fundamental legal protections-including bypassing the notice-and-comment procedures established by Congress for rulemaking. We urge DHS to withdraw the IFR in full or to significantly revise it and to conduct full notice-and-comment rulemaking before continuing to implement this rule.

The IFR codifies a punitive, unlawful fee collection system for the annual asylum fee ("AAF" or "annual fee"). DHS began implementing this system on May 29, 2026, without first providing the public an opportunity to comment.¹ Under the rule, failure to pay the AAF within 30 days of notice results in the rejection of the pending asylum application,² even for applications that have already been accepted and have been pending for years.³ Current regulations use rejection of an application at the intake stage, not as a mechanism to dispose of cases that have been pending for an average of four to five years.⁴ Yet the IFR applies this intake-based tool to long-pending cases, stripping applicants of their status without any adjudication on the merits of their case and denying them any meaningful avenue to challenge the outcome.⁵ Furthermore, failure to pay within this 30-day window results in the automatic termination of the applicant's work authorization.⁶

Since U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began implementing the AAF in September 2025, constituents and advocates have reported repeated instances of missing AAF notices, notices sent to outdated addresses, and notices misdirected to former representatives no longer connected to a case.⁷ The agency's own track record of inadequate notice in this precise context is well-documented through litigation.⁸ Additionally, for some people who have tried to pay the AAF online, they have encountered technical issues with the USCIS website, thereby prohibiting them from paying the fee. Yet the IFR creates no grace period, no cure mechanism, and no right of appeal, which means individuals who never received a notice through no fault of their own could see their years-long pending case rejected and work authorization terminated overnight, even when they are willing and able to pay the fee. As Members of Congress whose offices regularly assist constituents navigating the immigration process, we are deeply concerned by the IFR's notice failures.

By definition, any applicant subject to the AAF has already waited for the adjudication of their asylum application for at least one year. Asylum seekers whose applications are rejected for nonpayment may refile,⁹ but those applicants will already have exceeded the statutory one-year filing deadline, making it even harder to be granted asylum.¹⁰ The IFR then compounds this harm by exposing rejected applicants who otherwise lack legal status to removal proceedings.¹¹

Congress passed the Refugee Act to protect those fleeing persecution.¹² Allowing a $100 fee-triggered by a notice an applicant may never receive-to serve as a basis for case rejection, permanent loss of work authorization, and exposure to removal proceedings is not a faithful implementation of that statutory mandate. It is precisely the kind of sweeping, discretionary policy change that demands notice-and-comment rulemaking before the rule's implementation, not unilateral agency action.

Additionally, the IFR also threatens TPS holders' right to continuous work authorization. The TPS statute guarantees that employment authorization shall remain "effective throughout the period" of a TPS designation.¹³ The OBBBA limited the validity period of individual Employment Authorization Document ("EAD") cards;¹⁴ it did not amend or repeal the TPS statute's guarantee of continuous work authorization. Yet the IFR treats the 12-month limit as an inflexible rule and creates a system that predictably causes work authorization gaps for people with valid TPS, especially in light of growing processing delays.¹⁵ We frequently hear from constituents about ongoing work permit processing delays, and this rule would further expose applicants to these processing delays through no fault of their own.

As Members of Congress who represent small and large business owners across the country, we are acutely concerned about the IFR's economic and fiscal consequences. Asylum applicants represent one of the largest work-authorized immigrant workforces in the United States. As of early 2026, an estimated 2.3 million asylum applicant workers contribute more than $108 billion to the U.S. economy annually and pay approximately $33 billion in combined taxes, including $19 billion in federal and payroll taxes and $14 billion in state and local taxes.¹⁶ These revenues fund the schools, roads, public safety agencies, Medicaid programs, and children's health programs that Americans rely on every day.

Asylum applicant workers are heavily concentrated in industries that are already experiencing persistent labor shortfalls, including healthcare, childcare, and education. Local communities that received more people seeking asylum during 2021-2023 saw higher employment and wages for native-born workers and all existing workers.¹⁷ These workers are not competing with U.S. workers; they are enabling businesses to stay open and grow.

The same concerns apply to TPS holders. As of January 2025, nearly 1.3 million TPS holders generate approximately $29 billion in economic activity and pay an estimated $7.8 billion in taxes annually.¹⁸ Approximately 830,000 TPS holders work in critical industries including construction, retail, hospitality, transportation, warehousing, and manufacturing.¹⁹ The sudden disruption of their work authorization is not an abstraction-it is a direct threat to businesses in our districts that have invested in training these workers, to patients who depend on immigrant caregivers, and to families whose livelihoods depend on continued lawful employment.

The Administrative Procedure Act ("APA") requires agencies to consider responsible alternatives.²⁰ The IFR violates that requirement. For asylum seekers, DHS briefly acknowledged some alternatives, including denying rather than rejecting applications, or holding asylum applications in abeyance until the AAF is paid, but DHS did not pursue those alternatives in large part because they would offer more protection and access to work authorization before a final adjudication.²¹ That is not a reasoned basis for choosing the harshest possible approach.

DHS already uses tools in similar contexts that could have been applied here: requests for evidence, notices of intent to deny, and opportunities to cure. For TPS holders, DHS could have committed to processing EAD renewals within 30 days or issued Federal Register notices automatically extending work authorization for TPS holders whenever processing delays prevent timely EAD issuance. The IFR never explains why these less disruptive alternatives would not suffice.

DHS cited the APA's narrow "good cause" exception to implement the IFR without prior notice-and-comment rulemaking.²² The APA allows for that exception only where notice and comment would be "impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest."²³ The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed nearly a year ago, but DHS now suddenly claims that "immediate implementation,"²⁴ with severe and punitive consequences, is necessary. DHS cannot manufacture an emergency through its own delay and then use it to avoid the public participation that Congress intended.

Congress established the notice-and-comment process to ensure that sweeping policy changes with enormous consequences receive the scrutiny and public deliberation they demand before taking effect. DHS's decision to bypass that process particularly for a rule with this magnitude of impact is an affront to the workers, families, and communities in our districts who should have had the opportunity to be heard. We therefore urge DHS to withdraw the IFR in its entirety or significantly revise this rule and to thoroughly consider public comment before continuing to implement this rule.

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