President Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" has run into an unforeseen snag that has triggered a lawsuit.
The legislation, signed by Trump earlier this year, cuts over $1 trillion in Medicaid and food assistance programs, and phases out renewable energy and electric vehicle credits, while extending enormous tax cuts that go almost exclusively to wealthy voters. But one of the lesser-discussed changes this bill made was to impose a $100 annual fee on asylum seekers in the United States.
According to Politico, however, this was set up in such an unclear way that there isn't even a way for asylum seekers to pay this fee, leading to a lawsuit against the administration.
"The fees, which are new, were part of the GOP’s domestic policy and tax law President Donald Trump signed on July 4, but the administration’s rollout has been plagued by mishaps: The two agencies collecting the fees initially released different instructions, and only one has offered a vehicle to pay the annual fee," said the report. "Payment notices to asylum seekers have been sporadic, and misinformation has run rampant on social media."
Some asylum seekers are afraid that the inability to pay will be used as an excuse to remove them from the country. Meanwhile, "Some asylum seekers who have opted to pay the immigration courts $100 say there’s no way to know whether that’s the correct way to pay or whether the federal government will ask them to pay again."
“It just feels like people are being cornered from every angle, and the lack of clarity just causes that much more fear and intimidation,” Boston area immigration lawyer Robin Nice told Politico. “It’s hard to know if it’s weaponized incompetence in how they’re rolling it out, or if it’s straight up malicious ... but it’s really hard to advise clients.”
American Immigration Council fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a frequent critic of the Trump administration's immigration policies, was aghast at the development.
"Here’s how badly managed the Trump admin is; asylum seekers had to file a class action lawsuit because they were ordered to pay a fee but there was no payment system set up to accept their money," he wrote in a post on X.
