MIAMI - The chief of immigration services is pressing ahead with hefty application fee increases despite skepticism about his plans to revolutionize an agency long derided by immigrants as inefficient and unfriendly.
Fee increases, scheduled to take effect in June, would raise the cost of applying for a green card from $325 to $905 and citizenship from $330 to $595 - generating about $1 billion more a year than the agency now has in its annual budget. In an exclusive interview with The Miami Herald last week, Emilio Gonzalez - director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services - promised that the higher fee revenue will help end chronic delays, move offices in run-down buildings to comfortable new facilities, replace paper applications that must be mailed with electronic forms that can be filed online and turn rude or inattentive employees into well-trained customer-friendly staffers.
Gonzalez concedes that past fee increases by the agency, once part of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, didn’t always speed up the process. His goal is to create a system so simple that immigrants won’t need to hire attorneys. His plans call for 1,500 new immigration officers, online applications and 39 new facilities - all aimed at processing green cards or citizenship applications in six months or less.
Before issuing a green card or swearing in a naturalized U.S. citizen, Gonzalez’s agency needs a green light from the FBI that the immigrant is not a terrorist or a criminal. Tens of thousands of applications are now delayed waiting for the FBI to complete the background checks. Ninety seven percent of applicants are cleared in less than six months, Gonzalez said, but three percent get stuck in name check limbo.
The situation has led thousands to sue Gonzalez’s agency. Gonzalez is negotiating with the FBI on ways to speed the process as early as September. One solution: his agency may pay the FBI more money and provide trained clerks to cut back on delays.
Immigrants moving to the USA should purchase health insurance.
