ASAP

WASHINGTON — Late last month, an immigrant seeking asylum in the U.S. came across social media posts urging her to pay a new fee imposed by the Trump administration before Oct. 1, or else risk her case being dismissed.

Paula, a 40-year-old Los Angeles-area immigrant from Mexico, whose full name The Times is withholding because she fears retribution, applied for asylum in 2021 and her case is now on appeal.

But when Paula tried to pay the $100 annual fee, she couldn’t find an option on the immigration court’s website that accepted fees for pending asylum cases. Afraid of deportation — and with just five hours before the payment deadline — she selected the closest approximation she could find, $110 for an appeal filed before July 7.

She knew it was likely incorrect. Still, she felt it was better to pay for something, rather than nothing at all, as a show of good faith. Unable to come up with the money on such short notice, Paula, who works in a warehouse repairing purses, paid the fee with a credit card.

“I hope that money isn’t wasted,” she said.

That remains unclear because of confusion and misinformation surrounding the rollout of a host of new fees or fee increases for a variety of immigration services. The fees are part of the sweeping budget bill President Trump signed into law in July.

Paula was one of thousands of asylum seekers across the country who panicked after seeing messages on social media urging them to pay the new fee before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

But government messaging about the fees has sometimes been chaotic and contradictory, immigration attorneys say. Some asylum seekers have received notice about the fees, while others have not. Misinformation surged as immigrants scrambled to figure out whether, and how, to pay.

Advocates worry the confusion serves as a way for immigration officials to dismiss more asylum cases, which would render the applicants deportable.

The fees vary. For those seeking asylum, there is a $100 fee for new applications, as well as a yearly fee of $100 for pending applications. The fee for an initial work permit is $550 and work permit renewals can be as much as $795.

Amy Grenier, associate director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Assn., said that not having a clear way to pay a fee might seem like a small government misstep, but the legal consequences are substantial.

For new asylum applications, she said, some immigration judges set a payment deadline of Sept. 30, even though the Executive Office for Immigration Review only updated the payment portal in the last week of September.

“The lack of coherent guidance and structure to pay the fee only compounded the inefficiency of our immigration courts,” Grenier said. “There are very real consequences for asylum-seekers navigating this completely unnecessary bureaucratic mess.”

Two agencies collect the asylum fees: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), under the Department of Homeland Security, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), under the Department of Justice, which operates immigration courts.

Both agencies initially released different instructions regarding the fees, and only USCIS has provided an avenue for payment.

The departments of Homeland Security and Justice didn’t respond to a request for comment. The White House deferred to USCIS.

USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser said the asylum fee is being implemented consistent with the law.

“The real losers in this are the unscrupulous and incompetent immigration attorneys who exploit their clients and bog down the system with baseless asylum claims,” he said.

The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), a national membership organization, sued the Trump administration earlier this month after thousands of members shared their confusion over the new fees, arguing that the federal agencies involved “threaten to deprive asylum seekers of full and fair consideration of their claims.”

The organization also argued the fees shouldn’t apply to people whose cases were pending before Trump signed the budget package into law.

In a U.S. district court filing Monday, Justice Department lawyers defended the fees, saying, “Congress made clear that these new asylum fees were long overdue and necessary to recover the growing costs of adjudicating the millions of pending asylum applications.”

Some of the confusion resulted from contradictory information.

A notice by USCIS in the July 22 Federal Register confused immigrants and legal practitioners alike because of a reference to Sept. 30. Anyone who had applied for asylum as of Oct. 1, 2024, and whose application was still pending by Sept. 30, was instructed to pay a fee. Some thought the notice meant that Sept. 30 was the deadline to pay the yearly asylum fee.

By this month, USCIS clarified on its website that it will “issue personal notices” alerting asylum applicants when their annual fee is due, how to pay it and the consequences for failing to do so.

The agency created a payment portal and began sending out notices Oct. 1, instructing recipients to pay within 30 days.

But many asylum seekers are still waiting to be notified by USCIS, according to ASAP, the advocacy organization. Some have received texts or physical mail telling them to check their USCIS account, while others have resorted to checking their accounts daily.

Meanwhile the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) didn’t add a mechanism for paying the $100 fee for pending asylum cases — the one Paula hoped to pay — until Thursday.

In its Oct. 3 complaint, lawyers for ASAP wrote: “Troublingly, ASAP has received reports that some immigration judges at EOIR are already requiring applicants to have paid the annual asylum fee, and in at least one case even rejected an asylum application and ordered an asylum seeker removed for non-payment of the annual asylum fee, despite the agency providing no way to pay this fee.”

An immigration lawyer in San Diego, who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution, said an immigration judge denied his client’s asylum petition because the client had not paid the new fee, even though there was no way to pay it.

The judge issued an order, which was shared with The Times, that read, “Despite this mandatory requirement, to date the respondents have not filed proof of payment for the annual asylum fee.”

The lawyer called the decision a due process violation. He said he now plans to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, though another fee increase under Trump’s spending package raised that cost from $110 to $1,010. He is litigating the case pro bono.

Justice Department lawyers said Monday that EOIR had eliminated the initial inconsistency by revising its position to reflect that of USCIS and will soon send out official notices to applicants, giving them 30 days to make the payment.

“There was no unreasonable delay here in EOIR’s implementation,” the filing said. “…The record shows several steps were required to finalize EOIR’s process, including coordination with USCIS. Regardless, Plaintiff’s request is now moot.”

Immigrants like Paula, who is a member of ASAP, recently got some reassurance. In a court declaration, EOIR Director Daren Margolin wrote that for anyone who made anticipatory or advance payments for the annual asylum fee, “those payments will be applied to the alien’s owed fees, as appropriate.”

Rihanna and ASAP Rocky have welcomed the latest addition to their growing family: their first baby girl.

The “Love on the Brain” singer announced the arrival of her daughter with the “Highest 2 Lowest” star on Wednesday, sharing a photo of her newest bundle of joy to Instagram. In the picture, Rihanna cradles her newborn, who is wearing a baby-pink jumpsuit.

“Rocki Irish Mayers,” she says in the Instagram caption, which also reveals the date of birth, Sept. 13.

Baby Rocki is the third child for the celebrity pair, who began dating in 2019. They also share sons RZA, born in May 2022, and Riot, who was born in August 2023. Rocki’s name is a twist on her father’s stage name, but it also continues the stars’ tradition of choosing names that begin with the letter “R.” Notably, Rihanna’s and ASAP Rocky’s birth names also begin with that letter: Robyn and Rakim.

The Fenty Beauty mogul shared the first public photos of her daughter months after her splashy pregnancy reveal at the 2025 Met Gala in May. At the event, the singer cradled her baby bump as she posed for photographers in a custom-made Marc Jacobs suit. She walked solo down the red carpet. ASAP Rocky, who was one of the co-chairs of the annual event, had arrived earlier in the evening. Even before hitting the carpet, the “Umbrella” and “Don’t Stop the Music” hitmaker publicized her pregnancy on social media.

“It feels amazing, you know,” ASAP Rocky told CBS News in May, confirming the pregnancy on the red carpet. “It’s time that we show the people what we was cooking up.”

For Rihanna, 37, and ASAP Rocky, 36, the arrival of their baby girl is the latest event in a busy year that also included a legal victory for the “Sundress” rapper and Hollywood projects for both.

In a 2024 cover story for Interview magazine, the singer expressed her desire for a large family, saying that having children with ASAP Rocky “was the best thing that ever happened to us.”

Rihanna also said at the time that she wanted as many kids as “God wants me to have.”

Maybe you’ve heard about San Francisco’s doom loop. But have you met its jumbo nude?

As just about any San Franciscan could tell you, “doom loop” is shorthand for the city’s post-pandemic troubles. Many of those worries stem from dwindling demand for office space, but would-be visitors have also been nervous about crime and withering retail energy.

That brings us to the jumbo nude. It’s a 45-foot, semi-translucent sculpture of a woman now standing at the foot of Market Street, officially named R-Evolution. Not everyone loves her, but she is one among many new or improved elements attracting locals and visitors these days.

Even with San Francisco’s office vacancy rate hovering around 35%, the sun keeps rising and visitors keep smiling, most of them, much of the time.

Make your way to the city and you can see major park upgrades at the Presidio and Ocean Beach. Or you can frolic among massive balloon installations, vintage photo booths and ‘60s artifacts in permanent and pop-up places that bill themselves as museums.

There’s also the prospect of a new “bay lights” show with 50,000 illumination points on the Bay Bridge. (Those lights were supposed to be on by now, but installation snags led to a delay; organizers say they’re hoping to be ready “sometime this fall.”)

Also, the food doesn’t hurt. When our critic Bill Addison chose 101 of his favorite California restaurants recently, 35 of them were in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, crime has been falling since early 2023, especially this year. Tourist arrivals are 11% behind 2019 but have grown steadily since 2021.

As this list attests, there’s plenty to see. But first, we should talk about a few places not on this list.

One is Fisherman’s Wharf. It has added a SkyStar Ferris wheel (which migrated from Golden Gate Park in 2023) and the Port of San Francisco says it will soon begin a big redevelopment, but the area remains dominated by T-shirt shops and multiple old-school restaurants that have been shuttered since the pandemic. The neighborhood was to have added a Museum of Failure this year but, not kidding, the enterprise collapsed amid an intellectual property dispute before opening. The storefront “failure” sign was still up in June, creating the snarkiest photo op ever.

Another mixed bag is Union Square, whose hotels, department stores and passing cable cars have made it the starting point for legions of tourists through the decades. The square is still pleasant by day, with young visitors drawn to assorted free games (ping-pong, badminton, cornhole) while cable cars pass, tourists line up for Big Bus tours and guests at the adjacent Beacon Grand Hotel (formerly the Sir Francis Drake) explore the neighborhood. But many key retailers have shuttered, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom, and Macy’s will follow. (The company has said it will close as soon as it finds a buyer for the property.)

“We feel safe here. But kind of disappointed by all the closures,” said Melinda Parker, visiting San Francisco with her husband from Boise. Also, Parker said, “a city should be judged on the quality of its public toilets. They have one here, and it’s closed.”

Still, there are more than enough bright spots to light up a San Francisco visit. Let’s go back for a second to Tunnel Tops, one of the city’s recently improved park spaces. You grab a snack, commandeer a patio table and gaze upon the Presidio and Golden Gate. A family debate erupts over whether to hit a museum next or try an urban hike. This is a sort of problem, but a nice choice to have. And San Francisco now offers plenty like that.

Count on Rihanna to drop major baby news during a high-profile event.

The singer and Fenty Beauty mogul revealed at the 2025 Met Gala on Monday that she is expecting her third child. Sporting a custom-made Marc Jacobs suit, the singer cradled a baby bump as she posed for photographers on the steps of the gala’s red carpet. She was joined by her boyfriend, rapper ASAP Rocky, who was one of the co-chairs of the event.

Hours before the grand reveal, the “Diamonds” and “Umbrella” hitmaker’s photographer, Miles Diggs, posted a photo of the singer walking in the rainy streets of New York in a two-piece steel blue matching set with her baby bump peeking out at her midriff. “Chance of Showers,” Diggs captioned the photo, which Rihanna liked.

“It feels amazing, you know,” ASAP Rocky told CBS News, confirming the pregnancy on the red carpet. “It’s time that we show the people what we was cooking up.” A representative for the singer did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for confirmation.

Rihanna, 37, and ASAP Rocky (real name Rakim Athelaston Mayers), 36, hit the Met Gala carpet almost two years after welcoming their second son Riot in August 2023. The Grammy-winning “Disturbia” singer famously revealed she was expecting her second child while headlining the Super Bowl halftime show in February 2023. The musicians, who began dating in 2019, welcomed their first son, RZA (named after the Wu Tang Clan founding member), in May 2022.

They were among the scores of entertainers, artists and entrepreneurs to fashionably descend on the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This year, the first Monday of May celebrated the Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.”

This year’s theme takes inspiration from Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book, “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity.” In it, Miller explores how Black people, and Black men in particular, have channeled flamboyant fashion to navigate identity and expand their possibilities in otherwise limiting environments through the culture of dandyism. The exhibit will be on view at the Met from May 10 to Oct. 26.

Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams and Anna Wintour also co-chaired Monday’s event. Lakers star LeBron James served as an honorary co-chair but did not attend the annual fashion gathering due to an injury.

Just earlier this year, Rihanna and ASAP Rocky presented a united front in a totally different environment: the Los Angeles courthouse where the latter was on trial on charges of shooting his former friend and ASAP Mob member Terrell Ephron, a.k.a. ASAP Relli, in 2021. ASAP Rocky was acquitted of two counts of assault. Rihanna attended several days of the monthlong trial and brought the couple’s children to closing arguments.

Since becoming a mother, Rihanna has been vocal about her desire for a large family. In a 2024 cover story for Interview magazine, the singer said starting a family “was the best thing that ever happened to us.”

“When someone sees you completely, and believes in you, and thinks you’re worthy of being the mother of their kids, it’s a great feeling,” the Savage X Fenty boss said at the time. “I felt the same about him. I knew he would be a great dad.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Rihanna said she is open to having as many kids as “God wants me to have.”

Times staff writer Karla Marie Sanford contributed to this report.