A leaked email shows immigration courts in the United States have been told to keep collecting the asylum application fee, even after a federal judge voided the regulations that created that fee. The instruction, reported by Migrant Insider on the basis of the internal message, leaves asylum seekers facing a charge whose legal foundation a court has already removed.

The contradiction sits at the centre of this story. A judge struck down the rules underpinning the asylum fee. The immigration court system, according to the leaked email, has not stopped collecting it. The report does not state who authored the email, when it was sent, or how many courts received it — gaps that matter when assessing how widespread the practice remains.

What does the leaked email actually say?

Migrant Insider reports that the email directs immigration court staff to continue fee collection following the judicial ruling. No further specifics of the message appear in the report. Readers should treat the claim as sourced to a single outlet citing an internal document, not to a published agency statement.

That absence cuts both ways. The government has not, according to the report, publicly confirmed or denied the instruction. Until an agency speaks on the record, asylum applicants cannot know from official channels whether the fee still applies to them.

Who is affected?

The affected group is asylum applicants in US immigration court proceedings who encounter the fee at filing. The report does not specify how many applicants have paid the fee since the ruling, nor whether any refunds are planned. Those two silences define the practical stakes: money collected under voided rules, with no stated path back to the people who paid it.

What is not said

Several questions stay open, and the source does not answer them:

• Which judge issued the ruling voiding the fee rules, and on what date
• The exact amount of the fee courts continue to collect
• Whether the email came from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the Department of Justice, or another office
• Whether applicants who paid after the ruling can recover the charge

Each of these points would sharpen the story. None appears in the report, and this desk will not supply them from inference.

Why the gap matters

When a court strikes a regulation, agencies normally publish guidance telling staff what to do next. A leaked internal email instructing continued collection suggests that public guidance has not followed the ruling — or has not reached the courts uniformly. Either way, applicants bear the risk of paying a fee that a judge has already found improperly imposed.

Anyone who has paid the asylum fee, or faces a demand for it, should verify the current requirement with the official immigration court system and the ruling itself before acting. This desk reports the change; it does not give legal advice.

The strongest fact here remains unchanged: courts are reportedly collecting a fee whose authorising rules a judge voided. Every promise in that sentence carries a caveat — the word "reportedly" — until an official source confirms it.