The current $305 fee for I-131 or application for travel document also known as advance parole is proposed to be increased to $360 — a hike of 18 percent.
If biometrics is needed, a separate fee of $85 would be charged to the applicant.
Parole, a document issued to foreigners for humanitarian and other grounds to travel to the United States without a U.S. visa, remains free.
Foreign nationals in the CNMI seeking to make inter-state travel are advised not to use their U.S. visas and instead apply for a parole to keep their CNMI immigration status when they return to the islands.
Under the federalization law, only the first two years after Nov. 28, 2009 will the federal government honor the CNMI-issued permits, including the so-called umbrella permits that are valid through Nov. 27, 2011.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the leading federal agency tasked to implement changes on the CNMI’s immigration system, is allowing documented foreigners in the commonwealth to leave overseas via the temporary advance parole system.
But this system will no longer be in place once the documented foreign workers have transitioned to U.S.-based employment programs.
Regulations for the transitional worker program are expected to be released this September.
“The advance parole has been used extensively as a temporary travel measure in the CNMI in order to enable people to return after travel using CNMI-issued work permits before they obtain status under the INA (Immigration and Nationality Act),” Marie Thérèse Sebrechts, DHS-USCIS regional media manager for Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, Guam and the CNMI, told the Variety in an email.
Alejandro Mayorkas, USCIS director, met with national immigration reporters via a teleconference on Wednesday, 10 a.m. EDT, to discuss their office’s proposed fees that were published in the Federal Register.
Sebrechts said their office is soliciting comments from the public on the proposed fee increases.
