Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Republicans Declare War on Asylum Seekers and the FTC - The American Prospect
Congressional Republicans are in a panicked sprint trying to put together a reconciliation package for this year. That’s their one chance to make an end run around the Senate filibuster, and so the entire Trump agenda is being stuffed into it. (Here at the Prospect, we’ve got further coverage on education policy and the bill’s general chances of success.)
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee is marking up its part of the bill. The text is out, and it is a doozy. It would greatly increase the funding for Trump’s mass deportation machine by forcing immigrants themselves to pay tons of fines, and it would abolish the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust powers.
The most outrageous section is certainly the proposal to slap huge new fees on various types of immigrants. For instance, if this passes, anyone who applies for asylum will have to cough up $1,000, while applying for Temporary Protected Status will cost $500. Parolees (people allowed to enter the country while their case is being processed) will be charged $1,000. Sponsors of unaccompanied children will have to pay $3,500, and any parolee or person with TPS status will have to pay $550 to apply for a work permit. Many more fees are applied to about every process throughout the immigration system.
All the money will go to fund immigration enforcement; all the fines can be adjusted upward by the homeland security secretary. They will be adjusted for inflation going forward, but cannot be waived. The purpose, obviously, is to coerce people away from trying to immigrate to America, inflict pain on the ones that remain, and use the money to fund even more anti-immigrant attacks—like this recent story from Oklahoma, where ICE broke into the home of U.S. citizens looking for someone who didn’t live there, forced their underage daughters to stand outside in the rain in their underwear, ripped the house apart, and stole all their computers and money as “evidence.”
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee is marking up its part of the bill. The text is out, and it is a doozy. It would greatly increase the funding for Trump’s mass deportation machine by forcing immigrants themselves to pay tons of fines, and it would abolish the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust powers.
The most outrageous section is certainly the proposal to slap huge new fees on various types of immigrants. For instance, if this passes, anyone who applies for asylum will have to cough up $1,000, while applying for Temporary Protected Status will cost $500. Parolees (people allowed to enter the country while their case is being processed) will be charged $1,000. Sponsors of unaccompanied children will have to pay $3,500, and any parolee or person with TPS status will have to pay $550 to apply for a work permit. Many more fees are applied to about every process throughout the immigration system.
All the money will go to fund immigration enforcement; all the fines can be adjusted upward by the homeland security secretary. They will be adjusted for inflation going forward, but cannot be waived. The purpose, obviously, is to coerce people away from trying to immigrate to America, inflict pain on the ones that remain, and use the money to fund even more anti-immigrant attacks—like this recent story from Oklahoma, where ICE broke into the home of U.S. citizens looking for someone who didn’t live there, forced their underage daughters to stand outside in the rain in their underwear, ripped the house apart, and stole all their computers and money as “evidence.”
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-04-30-republicans-declare-war-asylum-seekers-ftc/