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US Congressman Silvestre Reyes protests Immigration Fee Increases

February 1st, 2007
by VJ News

U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, protested the proposed 70 percent fee increase for immigration services in a letter to Citizenship and Immigration Services director Emilio Gonzalez Thursday.

“Over the last sixteen years, the processing fee has already increased more than four-fold, yet services have not improved and, in fact, have suffered. The agency’s long history of application backlogs and poor customer service do not lead me to believe that yet another fee increase will significantly improve the processing of applications,” the letter reads. “You have stated that the current fees do not cover the agency’s costs; however, it is not clear that this ‘gap’ in funding requires fees to increase by such a large percentage… It is important that the immigration process remain fair and accessible to those who wish to fulfill their dream of becoming a United States citizen. I respectfully request that you reconsider the new fees and provide the American people with a full explanation of the need for the drastic increase over this short period of time.”

Last week, U.S. Sens Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and U.S. Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., also sent a letter to Gonzalez saying they wanted to “analyze” the agency’s fee estimates.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 10:09 pm and is filed under General Immigration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.