Green cards and other immigration benefits face fee hikes

dreamy14 · 06-09-2010, 11:17 PM

not necessarily a reform news, but it's immigration news all the same.
thought i'd share it with you guys...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,5493596.story

Quote:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will raise fees an average 10% to help close a projected $200-million budget deficit. The cost of citizenship applications will not increase.

The cost of obtaining a green card, business visa and other immigration benefits will increase an average 10% under a proposal announced Wednesday by federal immigration officials.

But in a move hailed by immigrant advocates, officials decided not to propose fee hikes for citizenship applications, one of the largest and most politically popular categories of immigration benefits. Citizenship fees were increased by nearly 70% to $675 in 2007, which immigrant advocates say contributed to a sharp drop in the number of citizenship applications over the last two years.

Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the proposed fee increases were needed to close a projected $200-million deficit for 2010-11. Budget cuts of $160 million were not enough to offset the gap between the agency's projected $2.1 billion revenue and $2.3 billion in expenses, he said Wednesday during a national teleconference.

ironbrazican · 06-10-2010, 07:51 AM

so long as they let me get my green card (legally) i will gladly pay (close to) any amount

Lora · 06-10-2010, 12:30 PM

This could be an indication that CIR might be happening next year. You know they hike up the prices before anything gets voted/passes on so when CIR does get voted on or passed the new fee's are in place and apply to the new applicants, instead of hiking up the prices right before or after CIR causing back logs.

Or it could just be that theyre trying to reduce the deficit by hiking up service fee's...

freshh. · 06-10-2010, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lora

This could be an indication that CIR might be happening next year. You know they hike up the prices before anything gets voted/passes on so when CIR does get voted on or passed the new fee's are in place and apply to the new applicants, instead of hiking up the prices right before or after CIR causing back logs.

Or it could just be that theyre trying to reduce the deficit by hiking up service fee's...

Hope you're right.

Hiking fees isn't going to immediately reduce the deficit, though. But it will definitely reduce the amount of people that are able to afford to immigrate, legally, to the U.S. So, maybe this is a part of a much bigger picture.

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Green cards and other immigration benefits face fee hikes