By Richard T. Herman
For many immigrants, citizenship is supposed to be the finish line.
After years navigating temporary visas, employer sponsorships, government filing fees, green card applications, and long waits, naturalization represents the moment when the immigration journey finally comes to an end.
For many Indian immigrants, that journey has been particularly long.
Some arrived as international students.
Others came on H-1B visas to fill critical roles in technology, healthcare, engineering, research, and higher education.
Many spent years—sometimes decades—waiting for employment-based green cards while building careers, buying homes, paying taxes, raising children, and contributing to their communities.
Citizenship was often viewed as the final step.
Now that step may become substantially more expensive.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed increasing the filing fee for Form N-400, the Application for Naturalization, from $760 to approximately $1,330 for paper filings and from $710 to approximately $1,280 for online filings. The proposal would also eliminate reduced-fee options and most fee waivers that have historically helped lower-income immigrants pursue citizenship.
If adopted, the increase would represent one of the largest naturalization fee hikes in modern American history.
For many immigrant families, the proposal raises an obvious question:
After everything immigrants already pay, why is citizenship becoming even more expensive?
The answer reflects a significant shift in how the government views naturalization.
For decades, policymakers generally treated citizenship differently from other immigration benefits. Naturalization was viewed as a public good. New citizens vote, serve on juries, participate in civic life, and become fully invested members of American society.
As a result, previous administrations intentionally kept naturalization fees below the government’s actual cost of adjudicating citizenship applications.
The goal was not simply cost recovery.
The goal was encouraging citizenship.
Government policy reflected that philosophy.
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In the mid-1980s, the naturalization filing fee was approximately $35. During the 1990s it increased to roughly $95. In recent years, applicants generally paid between $710 and $760.
The new proposal represents something more than another fee increase.
It represents a different philosophy.
DHS has openly stated that previous administrations subsidized naturalization and that the agency now seeks to recover the full cost of processing citizenship applications. In other words, citizenship is increasingly being treated as a service that should pay for itself.
That distinction matters.
For many immigrants, citizenship is not the first immigration expense.
It is the last.
For many Indian families, the road to citizenship has already been among the longest and most expensive in the world.
Long employment-based green card backlogs have forced countless Indian professionals and their families to remain in temporary status far longer than policymakers ever intended. By the time many Indian immigrants become eligible for citizenship, they may have spent ten, fifteen, or even twenty years navigating the U.S. immigration system.
The proposed increase also arrives after years of escalating immigration costs.
Families may have paid for F-1 visas, H-1B petitions, H-4 extensions, employment authorization documents, adjustment-of-status applications, biometrics appointments, medical examinations, travel documents, and green card processing.
Many have also incurred attorney fees, document procurement expenses, international travel costs, and other immigration-related expenses over the course of their journey.
Citizenship is not the first immigration bill many families receive.
It is often the last.
That is why the proposed increase feels different.
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It arrives after years of investment.
It arrives after years of patience.
And it arrives at a moment when many immigrant families are already facing rising housing costs, education expenses, healthcare bills, and economic uncertainty.
For some families, the journey has involved more than paperwork and expense.
It has involved years of uncertainty.
Parents have worried about children aging out of dependent status before a green card became available. Families have endured repeated visa renewals, job changes, international travel restrictions, and constant concern about maintaining lawful status.
Citizenship represents the point at which those anxieties finally begin to fade.
For many families, it is more than a legal status.
It is peace of mind.
The United States currently has nearly nine million lawful permanent residents who are eligible to become citizens.
Many are members of immigrant communities that have spent years building lives in America.
They are physicians, engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and executives.
They are parents raising the next generation of Americans.
Indian immigrants, in particular, have become an essential part of the nation’s innovation economy. They lead companies, create jobs, develop new technologies, care for patients, teach students, and contribute to communities across the country.
Their contributions extend far beyond the immigration debate.
The overwhelming majority have already demonstrated their commitment to the United States through years of work, taxes, investment, and community involvement.
Yet the final step toward citizenship may soon become significantly more expensive.
Supporters of the proposal argue that government services cost money and that applicants should bear the cost of adjudication.
That is a legitimate policy argument.
But it is also reasonable to ask whether citizenship should be viewed differently.
After all, the benefits of naturalization extend beyond the individual applicant.
New citizens strengthen civic participation.
They deepen community ties.
They gain the ability to vote and participate fully in American democracy.
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For generations, the United States encouraged immigrants to become citizens because policymakers believed those outcomes benefited the country itself.
The current proposal asks a different question.
Should future citizens bear the entire cost of that process themselves?
The proposed increase would be easier to understand if applicants were seeing dramatic improvements in service.
Yet many immigrants report the opposite experience. Reaching a live officer is increasingly difficult. Automated systems often replace human interaction. Processing times can be unpredictable. If citizenship applicants are being asked to pay substantially more, it is reasonable to ask what improvements they can expect in return.
The rule remains subject to public comment and further review before becoming final. If adopted, however, immigrants could face dramatically higher naturalization costs as early as late 2026 or early 2027.
For many Indian immigrants, the question is not whether citizenship is worth pursuing.
After years of waiting, sacrifice, uncertainty, and investment, they have already answered that question.
The real question is whether the United States wants to make that final step easier—or more difficult—for those who have already demonstrated their commitment to the American dream.
Because when immigrants who have spent decades building lives in this country begin asking whether they can afford to become Americans, we are no longer debating a filing fee.
We are debating what kind of country America wants to be—and whether citizenship remains something worth encouraging.
(Richard T. Herman is an immigration attorney, entrepreneur, and co-author of “Immigrant, Inc.: Why Immigrant Entrepreneurs Are Driving the New Economy.” For more than three decades, he has represented immigrants, founders, researchers, physicians, investors, and families navigating U.S. immigration law and has spoken nationally on immigration, economic development, entrepreneurship, and demographic renewal. Richard is regularly quoted by The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, NPR, Bloomberg, Forbes, and numerous international media outlets on immigration law, workforce development, innovation, and economic competitiveness.)