Immigration agency raises the cost of citizenship

The Washington Times ^ | May 30, 2007 | Stephen Dinan

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The immigration service yesterday announced new fees boosting the cost of citizenship and green cards by hundreds of dollars, with agency leaders promising a streamlined, better-working and security-conscious agency in return.

    Unless Congress votes to block them, the higher fees go into effect July 30 -- giving congressional opponents two months to decide whether to take the unusual step of overturning regulations.

    "We need the money," said Emilio Gonzalez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that processes legal immigrants and judges applications for citizenship. "This agency is fee-based, 99 percent of our budget comes from user fees. We need to modernize; we need to be the agency people expect us to be."

    Mr. Gonzalez said the new fees have nothing to do with the current immigration debate in Congress, but the increases, and USCIS' ability to handle its existing workload, are bound to become a part of the discussion.

    The Senate is considering a bill that would add millions of new applications to the 6 million the agency already handles each year, and comes just as USCIS has dug itself out of a giant backlog of applications and is proposing changes to the citizenship test.

    The Senate bill, which has the support of President Bush, grants a path to citizenship to millions of illegal aliens -- forcing Congress to confront the value of citizenship.

    As for the new fees, Congress will be faced with three choices: do nothing, allowing the increases to go into effect; overturn them, forcing the agency to make do with its current revenue; or find money in the federal budget to make up the difference.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Democrats object.....( they want the votes....)

[Constitutions Grandchild]

The fees are going up by over 50% for people coming here LEGALLY. This is bogus.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

I misspoke. The fees are going up 100% — sorry. Green Cards are going from $395 to $1010 with accompanying Employment Authorizations going from $180 to $340 and Advance Paroles from $170 to $305. This is crazy. Illegals get a Z visa and legals get raped on fees.

Who are they trying to stop? Illegals or legal immigrants? This is bogus.

[mvpel]

At least they’re adding one free extension to approved orphan petitions, that’s nice - foul-ups and bureaucratic foot-dragging in Russia meant we had to file the I-600A twice at a cost of $545 each, not to mention the cost of having to hand-carry it down to Boston so it could be processed in time for our trip.

[Constitutions Grandchild]

Big Whoop! (Although I fully appreciate what you have had to go through and the cost). I do this for a living and to see what honest legal immigrants are having to go through and what they are proposing is distressing us to the max. Our firm sits on advisory boards and the government is really going off on a bat on this. When you add legal representation to the mix I’m afraid it’s going to be prohibitively expensive to immigrate honestly. We are all VERY, VERY CONCERNED.

Ted Kennedy needs to get out more. He REALLY needs to talk to people who do this for a living.

[Msgt USMC]

What a heaping, steaming, shovel full of Bravo Sierria! You don’t need to pay any stinking fees for citizenship in the Divide States of Amerika, all you gotta do, is SNEAK IN. Geeeze people, what planet have you been living on? WAKE UP AMERICA!

[jveritas]

Do you work for the US Immigration and Citizenship Services?

[MD_Willington_1976]

not cool... at least my employer will help me get my citizenship in 2010... but at that point what will it cost?

$2500, $5000....

Tell me again why educated professionals want to move here?

[Constitutions Grandchild]

No, I work for a private firm who represent doctors, and employment-related ONLY immigrants. This is not a one dimensional issue. We supply doctors to rural areas that are underserved as most American doctors don’t want to work in poorly supplied, poorly equipped rural practices and live and force their families to live in poor, underserved areas with no schools, etc. for their children. We take foreign doctors who enroll in residency programs here in the U.S., pass rigorous medical tests and then take jobs in rural, poor areas and VA hospitals to serve our citizens and our soldiers. Yes, we also do some technical and scientific research positions, but we mostly work with universities, hospitals and research programs. We understand American technical workers’ complaints about tailoring job descriptions, but we don’t get into much of the computer-based data programming jobs. I’m sure other firms do.

If the costs become so prohibitive that we can’t supply the needs underserved areas, the shortage of doctors will begin to cause major problems.

[jveritas]

Thank you very much for the reply. I think that doctors and nurses will be willing to pay these immigration fees to work in underserved areas and hence get their Green Card and later on their citizenship.

The increase in immigration fees although sound steep, it will hopefully enhance the process because USCIS can hire more people to do the immigration work. As you know the USCIS does not have a main budget from tax payers money but rather depends overwhelmingly on immigration fees to pay for its expenses including the salary of its employees.

[Cacique]

CALL! CALL! CALL! CALL! AND KEEP CALLING TILL THE LINES FRY!

WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! TILL YOU RUN OUT OF INK IN YOUR PEN!

Bombard the Democrats as well, especially the ones that ran on an anti illegal immigration plank and the ones in marginal districts who could be vulnerable. keep pounding on them.

STOP AMNESTY NOW!! WE CAN DO IT!!

The best way to stop Shamnesty

[jveritas]

Tell me again why educated professionals want to move here?

I am a legal permanent resident like yourself and very soon to apply for the US citizenship. I will tell you with all my heart, my mind, and my soul that there is no better place in the universe to call home and country like the United States of America, the greatest nation in history of mankind. All educated professionals dream to come and live in America even if they have to pay $ 10,000 in immigration fees because the USA is the best place in the world to live and on all levels, best social life, best standards of living, best justice, best freedom, and best equality.

God bless America.

[gubamyster]

ping

[sergeantdave]

“The immigration service yesterday announced new fees...”

Nice. The fascist bureaucrats can raise fees, write laws, enforce those laws and judge those laws.

Unelected bureaucrats writing laws is, of course, one of the primary traits of a dictatorship. But don’t tell anyone. You might wake up a sheep.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

>>Mr. Gonzalez said the new fees have nothing to do with the current immigration debate in Congress, but the increases, and USCIS' ability to handle its existing workload, are bound to become a part of the discussion.

The Senate is considering a bill that would add millions of new applications to the 6 million the agency already handles each year, and comes just as USCIS has dug itself out of a giant backlog of applications and is proposing changes to the citizenship test.<<

1) We all know, and they themselves admit, that USCIS is swamped today.

2) They will get millions more applications.

3) The amnesty talking points say that this will reduce the current applicants' wait time.

What's wrong with this picture?

[Old Student]

“because the USA is the best place in the world to live and on all levels, best social life, best standards of living, best justice, best freedom, and best equality.

God bless America.”

Amen, FRiend. It’s too bad more of our native-born don’t realize what you do. Thank you, and welcome!

BTW, thanks for translating all those documents for us. They make really interesting reading.

[Tennessee Nana]

This is awful...

Are the REAL immigrants going to have to pay the fees forgiven the illegal aliens throough the Amnesty Bill?

Meanwhile the REAL immigrants have to wait in line longer because 25,000,000 unfit-for-immigration-to-the-US illegal aliens have been bumped to the top of the line..

What an unjustice...

How many other freebies are going to be handed to these criminal illegal aliens?

[Tennessee Nana]

I’m a REAL immigrant...

I think you have some idea how the REAL immigrant feel aboout this AMNESTY BILL...

Today I asked my TN Senator Lamar Alexander who was going to do the health screening for all the 25,000,000 illegal aliens...

He said it was news to him he didnt know but would find out and get back to me...

the Senate dont know that immigrants must go through a health screening? Hello?

[Tennessee Nana]

Thats one big reason REAL immigrants are appalled by the AMNESTY Bill ...

The illegal aliens dont love and appreciate America like immigrants do..

The illegal aliens dont have to pay the fees ...how about that?