Immigration Fees to Increase by Spring

[WifeOHunkyJohn 2]

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Immigration Fees to Increase by Spring

By ANABELLE GARAY

Associated Press Writer

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DALLAS (AP) -- The fees immigrants pay for citizenship and permanent residency petitions will rise as officials try to prevent more backlogs in the system, the director of the nation's immigration service said Tuesday.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Emilio Gonzalez said the amount of the increases is still being determined, but expects it to be significant.

"I envision that it'll go up a fair amount," he said during a visit to Dallas. "We're a business. We're not allowed to be deficient."

Currently, immigrants applying for citizenship pay $330 or $325 for permanent residency documentation known as a "green card." Applicants also pay a $70 fingerprinting fee. They could see the new prices for immigration petitions by April, Gonzalez said.

Citizenship and Immigration Services processes applications for citizenship, permanent residence, work permits and other immigration documents. During the past few years, the agency has been working through a backlog that kept some immigrants waiting up to three years for green cards or citizenship.

The agency is mainly funded by application fees and some appropriations from the federal government, which usually target specific programs. It has a $2 billion budget, but Gonzalez said that's not enough.

The additional money from higher fees would fund hiring more staff to work through applications, training current employees, renovating buildings and improving technology, Gonzalez said.

---

On the Net:

Department of Homeland Security: http://www.dhs.gov

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: http://uscis.gov

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[Ban Hammer 14,268]

DALLAS (AP) -- The fees immigrants pay for citizenship and permanent residency petitions will rise as officials try to prevent more backlogs in the system, the director of the nation's immigration service said Tuesday.

how are they gonna try to prevent a backlog? by pricing it out of people's means to pay for it?

[William33 110]

More sub-standard service at a higher price....Great!!!!

[*julez* 124]

DALLAS (AP) -- The fees immigrants pay for citizenship and permanent residency petitions will rise as officials try to prevent more backlogs in the system, the director of the nation's immigration service said Tuesday.

how are they gonna try to prevent a backlog? by pricing it out of people's means to pay for it?

That's a thought, or to be a "glass half full" type I could interpret it to mean they'd hire more people to process teh work with the extra funds.

[Fandango 1,440]

Im down with higher fees if it means better service.

[peejay 327]

Ha! Ha! We just filed our I-751 in November. We filed AoS before the last increase too.

The service is still crappy whether we pay more or not. US-CIS is the only game in town and they have no incentive to provide better service. It will just cost more to get more of the same-o-sh!t.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

No real news here.

[Scott & Lai 12]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IMM...&SECTION=US

Immigration Fees to Increase by Spring

DALLAS (AP) -- The fees immigrants pay for citizenship and permanent residency petitions will rise as officials try to prevent more backlogs in the system, the director of the nation's immigration service said Tuesday.

Here's a thought: Absolutely no amnesty in any form....that will prevent an enormous backlog.

"I envision that it'll go up a fair amount," he said during a visit to Dallas. "We're a business. We're not allowed to be deficient."

Uh.....no.....they're a government agency, not a business; which is why they can get away with levels of incompetency that would bankrupt any business in the private sector.

[Inlove_tx 0]

Great, right before we apply to remove conditions...

[pj1959us 0]

Great, right before we apply to remove conditions...

Us too!

[Karen_L 1]

DALLAS (AP) -- The fees immigrants pay for citizenship and permanent residency petitions will rise as officials try to prevent more backlogs in the system, the director of the nation's immigration service said Tuesday.

how are they gonna try to prevent a backlog? by pricing it out of people's means to pay for it?

Maybe they will raise all the USCIS's workers' salaries as an incentive to work faster and better and be nicer on the phone.

Or maybe they will take all this surplus money they will get and invest in a super-fast petition-approving machine that will replace all of the humans at USCIS and cut wait times by 90%. The downside to this, of course, will be that anyone who calls USCIS about their case status will get one of two stock answers -- "The Machine is Processing Your Petition" or "The Machine is at Rest. Call back tomorrow."

[Girona40 1]

If they use the money to employ more staff, with the intent to process the backlog faster, then I am all for an increase in the fees.

Many of us have had to deal with additional fees that we would not have had to incur if we were processed in a "reasonable" time. In particular the cost of additional EAD's that simply would not be required if the AOS processing were faster.

Let's hope that the money will be used for what they say!

[devblt 0]

As I understand it they are increasing the fees because the immigration service is almost fully funded by the fee's people pay. If they do sigfinicantely increase the fee's which prices people out of the immigration process will mean fewer applications, thus less fees, thus a decrease in funding for the immigration department, which will lead to cutting staff and budget's and a much worser experience for those that can afford to go through the process..

I see nothing good in this.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Its gone up every frickin year. USCIS = Useless bastards.