**GAO-09-180**                      Published: Jan 23, 2009. Publicly Released: Jan 23, 2009.                  

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## Highlights

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced an increase to its immigration and naturalization application fees by an average of 86 percent, effective July 2007, contributing to a surge in application volume that challenged the agency's pre-adjudicative operations. In July 2007, the incoming application volume increased an unprecedented 100 percent over the prior month and the processing of 1.47 million applications was delayed. GAO was asked to review USCIS's current fee design and compare it to the principles in GAO's user-fee design guide and USCIS's management of operations affected by the new fees, specifically in projecting application volumes and contracting for application processing services. To do so, GAO reviewed legislation and agency documentation; compared the fee design to GAO's principles of effective user-fee design (equity, efficiency, revenue adequacy, and administrative burden); visited processing centers; and interviewed agency officials at these locations and in headquarters.

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## Topics

Auditing and Financial Management

Administrative costsClaims processingClaims processing costsContract administrationContractsCost analysisData collectionData integrityFederal formsFederal regulationsFeesImmigrationImmigration and naturalization lawNaturalizationPrices and pricingProgram evaluationUser feesWaiversPolicies and procedures