Immigration expenses burden system that still doesn't work right

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs ... 12/OPINION

Posted Sunday, February 4, 2007
OUR VIEW

As if the immigration debate wasn't complicated and inflammatory enough, the government is set to impose a big increase in application fees for those who do enter the legal way and seek citizenship.

This week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services revised its fee schedule, which after public comment could take effect by June. The extra $1 billion expected from this is intended to close the gap between processing costs, computer system upgrades and clearing application backlogs.

Immigrant advocates and attorneys are objecting already, saying bigger fees burden legal residents who wish to be citizens with the government's operating expenses, and will sort people by ability to pay.

For example, work permits would go from $180 to $340. Legal permanent residence would go from $325 to $905. And application for citizenship would rise from $330 to $595. People who must hire a lawyer, certify documents, get medical exams or travel to interviews can pay double those amounts.

By law, immigrants' fees are supposed to cover agency expenses. But the government has been adding $80 million a year since 2002 to catch up with the workload. And it's still not enough, according to the Government Accounting Office. In these five years, the number of applications increased 60 percent as well.

Nor are the information systems equipped to handle the reforms that Congress is considering now, including border security, a guest worker program and legalizing undocumented immigrants. The Homeland Security Department's inspector general warned in December that technical modernization in the paperbound bureaucracy and integration down to local offices are happening piecemeal or have been discontinued for lack of business-like strategy.

The immigration service also has had to pay for lawsuits, project contracting and hiring extra personnel to make up its shortcomings.

The finances to manage immigration clearly don't add up. Since the last fee adjustment was in 2003, and mostly accounted for inflation, prices could stand adjustment. But beware of discouraging immigrants who are respecting the legal system, many of them with family, tax-producing jobs and property in the United States.

The sheer number of legal applications, many still lingering for years, and technological improvements necessary to set the agency right mean the government has a financial responsibility too.