Citizenship put on hold for immigrants, documentation system expands
Associated Press
Issue date: 2/11/08 Section: News
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush is asking Congress to spend money to help businesses root out illegal workers, but he did not request additional funds to help legal immigrants become American citizens more quickly.
In his budget proposal issued this week, Bush asked for $100 million to expand E-Verify, the system employers use to check whether they are hiring documented workers.
He didn't ask Congress to allocate money to chip away at millions of citizenship and other immigration applications that flooded the government last summer, before an increase in the agency's filing fees.
Instead, Citizenship and Immigration Services will rely on $468 million in fees to pay for reducing the backlog by 2010. Those funds are a portion of the total fees that came in with the applications this summer.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the summer's fee increases will give the agency the money it needs to get back on track. "People always argue well you ought to fund this, you ought to fund that. That's great, but the pie is only as big as it is and no one ever comes up with this slice they want to give back in return for this," Chertoff said.
A total 7.7 million applications for various immigration benefits poured into Citizenship and Immigration Services in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2007. That's 1.4 million more than the previous fiscal year.
"The backlogs are pretty much back where they were when they started and the agency is back to doing what it used to do, which is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Right now they are taking resources from permanent residents to do citizenship," said Crystal Williams, associate director for programs at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The immigration agency increased fees in July largely to raise about $1.5 billion to pay for modernizing computer equipment, hiring and training more workers, improving field offices and other spending.
Becoming a citizen now costs $595, up from $330. The price to get a green card is $1,010, up from $395. Applicants for both pay another $80 each for digital fingerprinting, a $10 increase. Congress gave the immigration agency $100 million a year over five years through 2006 to reduce the immigration backlogs. Agency Director Emilio Gonzalez announced in September 2006 the backlog had fallen to about 139,000 cases.
About 1 million applications in the backlog that were incomplete, from people still awaiting visas or whose FBI name check was delayed, were not counted.
The administration deserves credit for securing the $500 million from Congress for the backlog, said Doris Meissner, former Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner under President Clinton.
"They broke through the idea that this should just be purely financed by the applicant fees themselves," said Meissner, a senior fellow with Migration Policy Institute.
In his budget proposal issued this week, Bush asked for $100 million to expand E-Verify, the system employers use to check whether they are hiring documented workers.
He didn't ask Congress to allocate money to chip away at millions of citizenship and other immigration applications that flooded the government last summer, before an increase in the agency's filing fees.
Instead, Citizenship and Immigration Services will rely on $468 million in fees to pay for reducing the backlog by 2010. Those funds are a portion of the total fees that came in with the applications this summer.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the summer's fee increases will give the agency the money it needs to get back on track. "People always argue well you ought to fund this, you ought to fund that. That's great, but the pie is only as big as it is and no one ever comes up with this slice they want to give back in return for this," Chertoff said.
A total 7.7 million applications for various immigration benefits poured into Citizenship and Immigration Services in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2007. That's 1.4 million more than the previous fiscal year.
"The backlogs are pretty much back where they were when they started and the agency is back to doing what it used to do, which is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Right now they are taking resources from permanent residents to do citizenship," said Crystal Williams, associate director for programs at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The immigration agency increased fees in July largely to raise about $1.5 billion to pay for modernizing computer equipment, hiring and training more workers, improving field offices and other spending.
Becoming a citizen now costs $595, up from $330. The price to get a green card is $1,010, up from $395. Applicants for both pay another $80 each for digital fingerprinting, a $10 increase. Congress gave the immigration agency $100 million a year over five years through 2006 to reduce the immigration backlogs. Agency Director Emilio Gonzalez announced in September 2006 the backlog had fallen to about 139,000 cases.
About 1 million applications in the backlog that were incomplete, from people still awaiting visas or whose FBI name check was delayed, were not counted.
The administration deserves credit for securing the $500 million from Congress for the backlog, said Doris Meissner, former Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner under President Clinton.
"They broke through the idea that this should just be purely financed by the applicant fees themselves," said Meissner, a senior fellow with Migration Policy Institute.
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