Thread: Bush seeks funds for E-Verify but not for citizenship quest

Bush seeks funds for E-Verify but not for citizenship quest
Suzanne Gamboa

WASHINGTON — 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 on 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 last 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,â€

[quote]“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,â€

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Becoming a citizen now costs $595

I would call this the best thing money could buy. That is, unless we can stave off and defeat the NAU.