Naturalization Fee Increase Puts The Dream Of Citizenship Beyond The Reach Of Many

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced its plans to impose a significant increase in the fee to file the application for U.S. citizenship (Form N-400) to take effect on July 30, 2007. Currently, the fee is $400, but it will increase to $675, an increase of 69%.

The USCIS Rationale for the Fee Hike and the Comprehensive Fee Study

The USCIS maintains that it must comply with federal statutory and administrative requirements to ensure that the costs of services provided to naturalization applicants are fully covered by the fees those applicants pay. In order to determine the agency’s current costs of providing those services and to justify the amount of the fee hike, the agency has conducted a Comprehensive Fee Study that is being reviewed for approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

The Fundamental Flaws in Our System of Financing Immigration Services

There have been several significant increases in the naturalization application fee since 1990, when the cost of the application was $90. These increases are the result of a fundamentally-flawed system for financing immigration services. Congressional mandates are supposed to ensure that the revenue collected from naturalization applications and certain other immigration applications must cover the costs of providing services for applicants who are not charged fees. For example, these fee revenues must cover the expenses of adjudicating refugee and asylee applications. Thus, the naturalization application fee essentially contains a “surcharge” to cover the cost of providing services completely unrelated to naturalization.

The NALEO Educational Fund strongly condemns the exorbitant increase in the fee for naturalization that will be implemented this July 30th by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), because it will put the dream of U.S. citizenship beyond the reach of many of our nation’s newcomers. NALEO is disappointed that the USCIS did not heed the thousands of comments opposing the fee hike, including comments from Members of Congress, refugee and immigrant service and advocacy organizations, public policy groups, state and local governmental entities, educational and other not-for-profit institutions, corporations, and the general public.