WASHINGTON, DC --Today, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund will urge the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)  to rescind its recent application fee increases in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law.  The testimony will emphasize how the new fees place undue financial burden upon our nation’s newcomers, and will recommend important policy changes needed to reform our nation’s system of financing immigration services.

The testimony will draw upon NALEO’s decades of research and first-hand experience working with Latino immigrants and naturalization applicants, including most recently through its ya es hora ¡Ciudadanía! (It’s time, citizenship!) campaign.  “The dramatic fee increases imposed by the USCIS’ will place naturalization and other immigration services beyond the reach of many of the nation’s newcomers,” said Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the NALEO Educational Fund.  “About one out of three of our nation’s non-citizen households have annual incomes of less than $25,000.  Many of the immigrants who come to this country to join family members, build our communities, and add their skills and talents to our nation’s labor pool, will have to defer or forego their dreams.  For the 8.5 million legal permanent residents eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship, the USCIS fee hikes represent a serious obstacle in their path to become full Americans,” concluded Mr. Vargas.

The testimony also makes several policy recommendations for our system of financing immigration services, including a thorough re-evaluation of how the USCIS determines the costs of providing its services, and the need for Congressional appropriations to supplement fee revenue to cover agency costs.   

“We want a modern, well-managed immigration agency that can make timely and accurate adjudications in an evolving national security environment, and we want to ensure that applicants pay a reasonable fee to receive quality immigration services,” said Mr. Vargas.  “However, our current system for financing these services will simply not allow us to achieve these goals.  The USCIS, the Administration, and Congress must all demonstrate the leadership required to ensure that we make sound and reasonable assessments of the costs needed to operate our immigration system, and that we create a fair partnership between newcomers and our nation to pay for the system’s costs.”

Video of the subcommittee hearing will be available at http://judiciary.house.gov/Legislationlist.aspx