New Committee Leaders Send Letter on Immigration Fee Increase

Letter Signed by Chairs of Senate and House Judiciary Committees and Immigration Subcommittees

Media Contact: Kyra Jennings, 202.225.3072, kyra.jennings@mail.house.gov

Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), incoming Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims, today sent a letter to the Director of the United State Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) questioning a possible fee increase of 250% for processing naturalization and immigration applications and requesting more information.

She was joined on the letter by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), incoming Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), incoming Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Citizenship, and Representative John Conyers (D-MI), incoming Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Below is the text of the letter:

January 22, 2006

Dr. Emilio Gonzalez
Director, USCIS
Department of Homeland Security
20 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20529

Dear Dr. Gonzalez:

We understand that the United State Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is considering a fee increase for processing naturalization and immigration applications.

As the incoming chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and the Immigration Subcommittees, we look forward to working with you to ensure that USCIS has the necessary resources to carry out its mission. However, we are concerned by reports of the scope and scale of the fee increase. For example, we understand that the fees on naturalization applications may more than double, from the current fee of $400 to between $600 and $1,000. As the Congressional committees of jurisdiction, we want to better understand the extraordinary circumstances that could justify such a massive increase.

We hope that USCIS will not finalize the increase until our committees have had an opportunity to review the process by which your agency determined the need for and the scope of the fee increase. We would like to examine the cost estimates used by USCIS to establish the fees for various applications. We also wish to analyze the assumptions and methodology used by the agency to arrive at these estimates.

Please inform us in writing of your plans to issue a federal register notice for this increase and any plans you may have to implement this increase, including the fee amounts planned and the timeline for implementation, no later than February 2, 2007. We look forward to working with you to ensure that changes in the current fee structure are fair and reasonable for the applicants and USCIS.

Sincerely,

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA)

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)