USCIS Proposes Drastic Immigration Fee Increases
Monday, February 19, 2007
By: Nina Pedrad

Washington DC - A top federal immigration official proposed a drastic hike in immigration and naturalization application fees before a House judiciary panel last Wednesday, February 14. The drastic hike, averaging a 66 percent increase in fees, is deemed necessary by the administration and will "strengthen the security and integrity of our immigration system, improve customer service, and modernize business operations for the 21st century," said United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Emilio T. Gonzalez.

Some of the specific application costs the proposal would increase are the Application to Replace a Permanent Resident Card (I-90), which would increase by $100 from $190 to $290; the Petition for an Alien Fiancé(I-129F) would more than double to $455 from $190; the processing of an application to Register Permanent Status or Adjust Status (I-485 or permanent resident paperwork) would almost triple from $325 to $905; and the Naturalization or citizenship (N-400) process would increase in cost by over $200 to $595 from $330.

The proposal comes with the Bush administration request to severely cut the CIS budget from $182 million in fiscal 2007 to $30 million in fiscal 2008. Gonzalez held, however, that the new fees will "enable a 20 percent reduction in average application processing times" and is necessary in the Post 9/11 world.

The new fee structure is met by strong Democratic opposition, chiefly the full Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI), who said the new fee would be like the Statue of Liberty on the one hand "welcoming those who want to come here, and with the other she roots around in immigrants' wallets."

Conyers is joined by a number of immigration advocacy leaders, including Kevin Appleby, head of migration and refugee policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), who said early in February the increase would "price the American dream out of reach for qualified immigrants wanting to be citizens of our country."

Kennedy proposed that Congress assign more money to USCIS instead of increasing fees, per the President’s budget request.

The drastic increases were prompted after a 2004 Government Accountability Office found that the current USCIS' fees were inadequate to fund the department and advised that USCIS administer complete a fee study. The USCIS, whose operations are funded mainly through immigrant application fees, proposed the fee increases after a comprehensive study.

The last comprehensive fee increase was done in 1998, when the USCIS increased fees by an average 76 percent. The proposal will go through
a 60-day public comment period before the USCIS will create a final draft of the proposal. For more information on the fee increase, visit www.uscis.gov.