A fee born from a budget billA recurring government charge, easy to overlook and only $100 to start, is now enough on its own to end an asylum case. The charge dates to the sweeping tax-and-spending package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that President Trump signed on July 4, 2025. For the first time, it required a fee to file an asylum application and a separate, recurring charge for every year a case sits undecided. One Manhattan asylum seeker described scrambling to find work over a weekend just to cover the charge before his deadline hit. "I hope that money isn't wasted," she said of the payment, according to that reporting.