U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, D.C., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
According to a new report from the Libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, the Trump administration has presided over what researcher Austin Kocher called “the largest fee fraud in the history of the American immigration system,” collecting over $1 billion in application fees before refusing to process the applications. The situation is a direct result of the various travel bans and other anti-immigrant policies enacted by President Donald Trump over both his terms.
Immigrant visa applications cost thousands of dollars, and by law, the government is required to take action on an application if said fees are paid, processing it to issue either an acceptance or denial. If the government takes too long, an applicant can sue to compel it to take action, essentially arguing that the government has failed to provide services for fees exchanged.
But due to Trump’s travel ban against 92 nationalities, applicants from targeted countries have had their applications barred from processing with “no end date and no refunds for fees already paid.” Many applicants who have already been waiting through years of uncertainty and slow progress now have their visa processes halted altogether.
“The State Department is actively instructing consular officers NOT to tell applicants they're banned, even as those applicants pay fees and attend interviews,” explained Kocher. “The government is cashing those checks and then doing nothing. That's fraud not delay.”
And this fraud also extends to immigrants already living in the country, who must continue to apply for legal permanent residence, work permits, and other documentation. For those from banned countries — even though they’ve already been accepted into the countries — applications for domestic documents are “all frozen with no statutory authority cited.”
According to the report, this is not only the largest fraud in the history of the U.S. immigration system, but “is likely the first $1 billion fraud," impacting some 2 million applicants.
“Folks…have applied to DHS and they’ve paid money, and DHS is doing nothing?” said Republican Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) at a recent Congressional hearing, reacting with shock.
The report concludes on no uncertain terms, advising that “Congress should immediately require the administration to start processing applications and fairly adjudicate those applications without regard to a person’s birthplace. If someone cannot establish their eligibility, they can be denied under the law, but there is no reason to steal people’s fees and fail to provide the service the law entitles them to.”