Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Fee practices at immigration agency under scrutiny
It has long history of raising charges to cover its budget
http://www.winstonsalemjournal.com/serv ... 3351385526
THE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTONLast June, U.S. immigration officials were presented a plan that supporters said could help cut waiting times for green cards from nearly three years to three months and save 1 million applicants more than a third of the 45 hours they could expect to spend in government lines. It would also save about $350 million.
The response? No thanks.
Leaders of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected key changes because ending big immigration backlogs nationwide would rob the agency of application and renewal fees that cover 20 percent of its $1.8 billion budget, according to the plan’s author, agency ombudsman Prakash Khatri.
Current and former immigration officials dispute that, saying that Khatri’s plan, based on a successful pilot program in Dallas, would be unmanageable if expanded nationwide. Still, they acknowledge financial problems and say that modernization efforts have been delayed since 1999 by money shortages, inertia, increased security demands after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the creation of the Homeland Security Department.
As the nation debates whether, and how, to legalize as many as 12 million illegal immigrants, the agency that would lead the effort is confronting its reputation as a broken bureaucracy whose inefficiency encourages more illegal immigration and disincentives to change.
Under the Senate’s proposal, Citizenship and Immigration Services would vet legalization applications and perform security checks for illegal immigrants already living here — an increase that would be as much as triple the agency’s annual caseload of 5 million applications.
Each application could generate fines and fees of $1,000 to $5,000, a windfall of $10 billion to $15 billion over eight years, Homeland Security officials said. The money would dwarf revenue from a previously announced agency plan to increase fees on immigrant applications by 50 percent as early as next week, to raise $1 billion a year.
Former U.S. officials, watchdog groups and immigrant advocates say that Citizenship and Immigration is ill-positioned to make the best use of the money. Instead, they say, Congress must change how it finances the agency and provide tough oversight if the agency is to move past its legacy of shoddy service, years-long delays and susceptibility to fraud. Liberals and conservatives say that relying on user fees to upgrade the agency is a recipe for disaster.
“If the USCIS fails once again to meet the challenge, the laws of supply and demand will overtake U.S. immigration laws,â€