The biggest jump in fees since 1998 is being attributed in part to increased background checks and new anti-fraud technologies.

09:35 AM EDT on Monday, April 26, 2004

BY KAREN LEE ZINER
Journal Staff Writer

Journal photo / Connie Grosch It will soon cost Carolina Bernal more to bring her relative into the country becuase of stricter security measures.

Carolina Bernal came to Rhode Island from Ecuador in 1987, and recently became a U.S. citizen. Now she wants to bring her father here from Ecuador, and if she hurries, her reunification petition will cost $130.

But if she misses Thursday's deadline, the fee will jump to $185.

The costs for entering this country, getting a green card and becoming a U.S. citizen are about to shoot up, as the government raises immigration service fees by $55 per application. Though the fees go up every few years, this represents the biggest across-the-board increase since 1998.

For example, a person applying for permanent residency will now pay an average of $745 in combined fees, up from $555. That does not include $70 for "biometrics" (fingerprinting) -- up from $50 -- or the cost of a physical exam.

Employers who bring in temporary nonimmigrant workers, such as seasonal farm help, will have to pay $55 extra per person.

The government says this is the price of doing business after 9/11.

"Since 9/11, we have increased security background checks," says Dan Kane, spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in Washington. Kane says other factors driving the fee increases include new anti-fraud technologies and higher infrastructure and administrative costs.

The increased scrutiny includes determining "whether that person overseas in a refugee camp or applying for a visa is the individual he or she says they are;" whether the applicant has been involved in any criminal activity, here or abroad; or has been connected to a terrorist organization. "This takes time, especially if you are overseas," Kane says.

Immigration advocacy groups predict that the new fees will prove unaffordable for many immigrants, and are unjustified in the face of "deteriorating services" at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, including huge processing backlogs.

The groups are asking Congress to fix what they call an overburdened system, through direct appropriations. Currently, fees provide 97 percent of the agency's revenues; taxpayers provide the other 3 percent, says Kane.

"These backlogs today have reached crisis proportions, delaying business transactions and separating families for months and years," the American Immigration Lawyers Association said after the new fees were announced last week.

The association said the immigration service plays a vital role in determining "who is allowed into the country and who uses" its resources, but argued that "fee-based funding does not work for American security, American families or for American businesses."

Kane says the agency "is committed to reducing the backlogs by September 2006 for all applicants," and will soon announce a reduction plan.

Responding to critics, Kane says applicants can seek a waiver of fees if they cannot afford them. And, he adds, the intensified screenings are working.

"We are stopping people who do not have the right to come into the United States. Those 19 individuals [who committed the 9/11 attacks] came in without background checks," he says. "They had entrée into our society, and they came here to harm us. We cannot let that happen again."

THE AGENCY DECIDED to boost its fees after a recent cost analysis -- required every two years -- showed that it has been losing $1 million dollars a day since Oct. 1, 2003, Kane says.

Without the fees, he says, the bureau will continue falling behind in its services, which in its first year included 35 million national security checks "to ensure that the right applicant receives the right benefit in the right amount of time," and to prevent the wrong applicant from receiving benefits. (The agency, formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was established as part of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11).

Also in the first year, the agency eliminated lines at many high-volume offices across the country, according to Kane, and a bilingual, toll-free customer help line has opened.

(The American Immigration Lawyers Association calls that line "a failure." Kane says monthly client surveys show that "80 percent are satisfied.")

The agency has requested 142 more staff members to help catch up with its backlog. The bureau also seeks to fund new activities, including staff to interview refugees overseas, Kane says.

Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, says the agency plays a vital role "for the Latino community and the entire immigrant community, and as such, we believe USCIS must receive adequate funding to perform its vital functions."

But that funding needs to come from Congress, not fees, Yzaguirre says.

Increased fees "are not justified in the current context of processing backlogs and poor service" that have left countless American families waiting to be reunited with members of their immediate family, says Yzaguirre.

He adds, "It is also clear to us that fee increases alone will not resolve the financial problems faced by USCIS and will not result in better service."

AT THE INTERNATIONAL Institute of Rhode Island -- the state's largest immigration agency -- immigration program director Bruno Sukys says he and other frontline staff have been working long hours since February in anticipation of the fee increases.

"We knew the fees were going to go up. We didn't know the date," says Sukys. "We passed the word indirectly."

Though application fees have risen steadily, "you would hope the service would get better," says Sukys, "but to be honest with you, it has gotten worse."

Says Sukys: "Inquiries are taking longer. We are getting frustrated. The clients are frustrated, and the immigration people are getting frustrated."

People seeking adjustment of status, for example, from legal immigrant to permanent residency, are going to feel the pinch, he says.

"If you're doing a package [of combined fees], right now it's up to $555, and the next day, if you file on the 30th, it will be $745. That's a jump of almost $200," says Sukys. For many people, "that's almost a month's rent."

Carl Krueger, the institute's staff attorney, calls the immigration service "the worst-run agency in federal government, and it has been for years. And Congress has to step in and fix it."

Carolina Bernal, director of the Immigrant Workers' Rights Project at the Institute for Labor Studies in Cranston -- and who is seeking to bring her father from Ecuador -- doubts that increasing fees will help.

Says Bernal, "What bothers me is, every time I hear immigration is raising the fees, they always promise they will expedite the process and reduce the backlog, but we never see any improvement."