Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights v. Mullin (Unlawful Fee for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status)
About
This lawsuit was filed on 22 July 2026 to challenge the Department of Homeland Security’s unlawful decision to deny indigent immigrant youth the opportunity to request a fee waiver when applying for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJ status). The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeks to strike down a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) policy that bans some of the most vulnerable children in the immigration system from applying for waivers of the $250 immigration filing fee imposed by the “One Big Beautiful Bill” last summer.
SIJ status is a humanitarian protection created by a bipartisan Congress to provide a path to lawful permanent residence for immigrant children who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned by their parents. For over 30 years, SIJ applicants were categorically exempt from application fees. In 2025, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which imposed a $250 fee for SIJ applications. Congress deliberately refused to ban fee waivers for SIJ status, even though it expressly prohibited fee waivers for nearly a dozen other immigration fees enacted in the very same legislation.
Despite Congress’s clear intent, USCIS unlawfully declared that the SIJ fee is categorically non-waivable regardless of indigency. The agency did so without notice-and-comment rulemaking and without any reasoned explanation, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. The lawsuit argues that Congress considered and rejected a fee-waiver ban for SIJ, and that USCIS has no legal authority to enact a ban. The agency’s actions force abused and abandoned children to come up with money they do not have before they turn twenty-one, or lose their eligibility for SIJ status forever.
Many SIJ-eligible children have no lawful means of earning income, no parent or family whose resources they can draw on, and no way to assemble $250. The fee barrier is compounded by a statutory deadline because children must apply for SIJ status before they turn twenty-one. For those approaching that deadline, any delay can permanently end their eligibility. Children who lose SIJ status eligibility face devastating consequences, including deportation to countries where they have no family support, re-exposure to the same conditions of abuse or violence that they escaped, and severe psychological trauma.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and Legal Services for Children (LSC), two nonprofit legal services organizations that represent SIJ-eligible youth. Counsel for the plaintiffs include Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.