The audio for this podcast can be downloaded at

http://www.immigrationfridays.com/podcasts/07272007.mp3 

00:02 Announcer: Welcome to Immigration Fridays, your source of up-to-date immigration information brought to you every Friday, from Miami, Florida by the Immigration Law Offices of David J. Hart, P.A.

00:23 Announcer: Today is July 27, 2007 and this week's topic, The Deadline for Filing Fees. Here is David Hart.

00:32 David Hart: Welcome back everyone to Immigration Fridays. This is your immigration podcast from Miami, Florida. It is July 27, 2007. My name is David Hart, immigration attorney, and with me as usual is my co-host Andrea Olivos-Kah who is here with us by telephone once again. How are you Andrea?

Andrea Olivos-Kah: Good. How are you David?

00:50 David Hart: I'm doing great, thanks. Running around a little bit as I'm sure we all are. Our topic today, we are going to be brief precisely because it is Friday and there is a lot of cases that have to be sent out by FedEx. Now, I wanted to talk about the issue of the change in the filing fee. At least it wasn’t very clear to me Andrea but it seems like in this particular case with the change in the filing fees which starts as of this coming Monday July 30, as long as your mail is postmarked before July 30, so July 29, 28, 27, even if it gets there later, they will feed it in with the current filing fee, not the new one that starts on Monday.

Andrea Olivos-Kah: That is correct.

01:42 David Hart: And we found out and I think we already did post, we will post today that for example in Miami, I think everyone knows that FedEx, DHL, UPS and the post office work on Saturdays but we found and I think it has been posted, I'm not sure on Immigrate USA, that there is a public post office, a US Postal Service at least there is one in Miami and apparently every major city has one that is open on Sunday. And as long as you can identify where that post office is and what hours it is open on Sunday, let us say you can’t get it and you know Andrea there is going to be people who aren’t able to get this done on Saturday or today. As long as you see your envelope postmarked and I would still recommend sending it by overnight mail or registered mail so that you have it but keep your receipt to prove that it was postmarked that Sunday and obviously if it is Saturday or today then obviously you need to make sure you can see that the postmark is for that date and then it should be accepted with the current filing fee, right?

02:50 Andrea Olivos-Kah: Yeah, I think this is for people that absolutely cannot send it out by FedEx today because I think that is still a recommended method of filing because you can track the application and I think the USCIS is going to be bombarded with filing fee applications with kind of two separate deadlines. One is to beat the filing fee increase; we have the deadline for all those people that want to file all kinds of applications under the old fee schedule.  And then we also have kind of another filing deadline for all those employment-based adjustment applicants that want to benefit from the adjustment application and relate the applications under the old fee schedule who never had filed an I-140 before and now want to file everything together.

David Hart: Right, and they have until the 17^th.

03:40 Andrea Olivos-Kah: Well, that is the issue. There is a little bit of a difference there between employment-based adjustment applicants. Those people who had filed an I-140 and the I-140 is pending with immigration and now they are filing the adjustment; they can file under the current fee schedule today and up to August 17 under the old fee schedule. But those who want to file a concurrent I-140 with an I-485 only have until July 30 under the old fee schedule.

04:16 David Hart: Ok. Our advice today because we are going to finish up now, we all have to get back to work so I hope our listeners understand that we are working for many of you to get these filings so it is an appropriate subject for today. But look in your city if you have to like Andrea said if you cannot get this filed today or tomorrow and obviously FedEx to me or UPS or anything overnight that you can track it which I think even US Postal Service will do now through their website but if you have to find the one on Sunday, look for it now and just in case it doesn’t exist; don’t leave it to the last minute because if it is not available or for some reason it is not available in your city then if you don’t file it by Saturday, then you are out of luck then you would have to file with the higher filing fee. So we are posting on this on our website, www.immigrateusa.com. Any questions about how your filing procedure goes or thereafter if you get a rejected case, we would like to know about it. You can email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . We will be back with another edition of Immigration Fridays next week. Thank you.

Andrea Olivos-Kah: Bye.

05:44 Announcer: I would like to provide you with our contact information so that you can send in your questions, stories and situations. We will try to answer your questions and maybe even interview you on a future program.  You can leave a message at 305-577-9977.  From overseas, the code for the U.S. is 01 or toll free in the US and Canada at 1-800-344-4278. Leave a message for Immigration Fridays or email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . You can also find us at www.immigrateusa.com.