KIND respectfully submits the following comments in response to the above Interim Final Rule titled “USCIS Immigration Fees and Related Procedures Required by H.R.1 Reconciliation Bill,” published by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on April 29, 2026 (the “IFR”).
KIND is deeply concerned that by creating new barriers to consideration of children’s asylum applications and prioritizing the payment of H.R. 1 fees above meaningful consideration of children’s protection claims, the IFR could risk children’s return to persecution, trafficking, and other harm. The IFR diverges dramatically from longstanding practice as well as provisions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA)2 and U.S. and international asylum law governing the treatment of unaccompanied children and other protection seekers. DHS’s efforts to hurriedly implement the regulation prior to consideration of public comments and as it incrementally proposes a series of other significant changes to the asylum and work authorization processes deprive impacted individuals and the public of the ability to meaningfully engage on policymaking of significant public import and that poses severe consequences for children’s safety and wellbeing. We urge DHS to withdraw the IFR to ensure that new statutory authorities pertaining to fees are not implemented in a manner wholly inconsistent with the United States’s legal and moral obligations to the most vulnerable in the immigration system and the procedures required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).