The Department of Homeland Security is proposing increases in the filing fees for many USCIS petitions and applications. The proposed regulation would raise the fees for most employment-based petitions and applications by an average of 21%, though fee increases for some filings would be significantly higher. According to DHS, the higher fees reflect the current cost of processing immigration applications and petitions; some portion of the increased fees would provide additional funding for refugee and citizenship programs as well as system support for inter-agency immigration status verification databases.