FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 22 July 2026

MEDIA CONTACT: Raya Steier, c: 530-723-2426, rsteier@lccrsf.org

***PRESS RELEASE*** 

San Francisco— A coalition of civil rights and legal services organizations filed a federal lawsuit today challenging 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. The complaint details concrete harm to the organizations and their clients, including children who have been forced to take out loans or work extra shifts to pay the fee, and children whose petitions have been delayed because their families could not afford the cost. LSC alone has spent over $5,000 of its own organizational funds to pay the filing fees for its indigent clients since the ban took effect.

The complaint asserts two claims under the Administrative Procedure Act. The first claim argues that the ban is arbitrary and capricious because USCIS failed to consider the humanitarian purpose of the statute, the indigence of the SIJ status population, and the irreparable harm of aging out of eligibility and deportation. The second claim argues that USCIS adopted the ban without the notice-and-comment rulemaking required by law for binding, substantive rules.

The lawsuit seeks to vacate the ban and require USCIS to accept and adjudicate fee-waiver requests under its applicable framework, which allows fee waivers based on receipt of a means-tested benefit, household income at or below 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines, or extreme financial hardship.

Counsel for the plaintiffs include Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.

The case is Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights v. Mullin before the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California.

View the complaint here.

ATTORNEY QUOTES:

“This lawsuit is about ensuring that the most vulnerable children in our immigration system, those who have survived abuse and abandonment, are not shut out of protection simply because they are poor. USCIS’s categorical ban on fee waivers is a direct violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and must be set aside.” – Jacob Gonzalez, Staff Attorney at Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF)

“Every day this fee-waiver ban remains in effect, children who have been declared abused or abandoned by a state court are being forced to choose between sacrificing their safety and finding $250 they do not have. This is not what Congress intended. We are fighting to restore access to justice for these children before they age out of protection forever.” – Carl Bergquist, Counsel at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)

“Children can only be eligible for this immigration status if they have been abused, abandoned, or neglected. These children often have no family support and no financial resources. The purpose of SIJ status is to provide protection for vulnerable children and youth, and creating a financial barrier to this protection undermines the core purpose of this status.” – Cathy Sakimura, Executive Director at Legal Services for Children (LSC)

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