**[Naturalization Fee Increases:]{.smallcaps}**

**[Making it Difficult For Latinos to Realize the American
Dream]{.smallcaps}**

President Bush continues to fail law-abiding Hispanic immigrants who
want the chance to realize the American dream. On January 31, 2007, the
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced its
proposal to drastically increase its fees by an average of 66%. Instead
of keeping the barriers as low as possible, this proposal will impede
the ability of 4 million Latinos eligible for naturalization to become
citizens. Given our nation's long history as one built by immigrants, it
is clear this administration has placed an enormous burden on Latino
immigrants seeking to integrate and become active participants in
American society.

-   **Imposes an Enormous Financial Burden on Latino Immigrants:** The
    USCIS proposes increasing the naturalization application fee by 80%
    to \$595 and increasing the fee for lawful permanent residence by
    178% to \$905, among other increases. Latinos make up about 50% of
    all Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) eligible to naturalize and
    there is evidence that low-income LPRs put off applying for
    citizenship at higher rates than those with more income at their
    disposal. For example, in 2001, only 28% of LPRs with incomes below
    200 percent of the poverty line successfully naturalized. In
    addition, Latinos are twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to live
    in poverty, so it's not surprising that Latino LPRs tend to delay
    applying for naturalization at higher rates than other groups. Taken
    together, this fee structure places an overwhelming financial burden
    on prospective Latino citizenship applicants, is unfair, and
    punishes immigrants who obey the law.

-   **Increased Fees Unlikely to Improve Immigration Services:** The
    USCIS claims that applicants and petitioners will see substantially
    improved service under the new fee structure. However, this claim
    seems doubtful given the agency's pervasive problems with poor
    service, backlogs, lost files and prolonged processing times despite
    steady fee increases over the past few years. Moreover, the USCIS
    has stated that their projected 20% reduction in backlogs as a
    direct result of fee increases will not significantly improve until
    2009, meaning those who will be immediately impacted by the fee
    increases will not reap the purported benefits.

-   **Works Against Family Reunification:** The new USCIS fee structure
    does not take into consideration the financial burden these
    increases will have on multiple family applicants. Based on the
    current \$330 naturalization application fee for adult applicants,
    \$255 for children, and \$70 for fingerprinting, a family of four
    would pay \$1,450 to naturalize. Under the proposed increases, those
    costs would rise to \$2,430. As almost 20% of hard-working Latino
    families in the country are living below the poverty level and with
    many more facing hardships such as food insecurity, lack of access
    to health care and overcrowding, it is clear that raising
    naturalization fees works against the well-being of Hispanic
    families.

In his State of the Union address, the president told America that more
had to be done to uphold our nation's tradition of welcoming and
assimilating new people immigrating to this country. However, the
proposed fee increases go against the very spirit of our country and
send the wrong message not just to Latino immigrants, but immigrants
from all over the world.