On April 11, 2008, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced its proposal to raise fees for the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) in order to support improvements to the program.
The proposed fee increase will affect students and schools by: doubling the fee for nonimmigrant students from $100 to $200; raising most exchange visitor fees from $100 to $180; raising the fee for school certification from $350 to $1700; and increasing the site visit charges from $230 to $655 for each site visit. The fee for au pairs, camp counselors and summer work/travel program participants remains at $35. There is no fee for government sponsored exchange visitors. Schools currently participating in the program will not be required to pay any additional fees to recertify under the new rule.
Major enhancements to SEVP funded by the fee increase include: improved features for the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS); new field liaisons; additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to follow up on school administrators' alerts; and a new recertification process.
For more information please see the SEVP website at http://www.ice.gov/sevis/index.htm.
Information for this article was obtained from the USCIS website at www.uscis.gov.
