Guest Column
Citizenship, residency filing fees may double in April
- Citizenship, residency filing fees may double in April
- Immigrants encouraged to file early to avoid higher costs
- By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
- December 13, 2006
Becoming a legal resident of the United States or a citizen is not cheap.
Because of fees to file forms, fees to have fingerprints taken, fees for medical exams and other costs, the tab can quickly run into the hundreds or thousands of dollars.
For Maria Angelica Madrigal, a 38-year-old U.S. citizen trying to get green cards for her Mexican husband and their four children, the bill will be just under $5,000.
"I knew it would be very expensive," she said after getting the bad news from her law yers at Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services of El Paso. "But we have to pay so we can do things the right way --legally."
Citizenship and Immigration Services officials announced last week that they would raise their fees significantly sometime after April. Agency director Emilio Gonzalez did not say exactly what the increase would be, but he said it would be a "fair amount."
The latest fee increase, in October 2005, was a modest $5 to $20 more per application.
But this time, some immigration lawyers who meet regularly with government
officials and who attend conferences on immigration think the increase could double the current fees.
This would mean that a $325 I-485 application to register permanent residence could go up to $650; a $330 N-400 application for naturalization could go up to $660. The increase will probably also apply to fingerprinting fees.
Kathleen Walker, an El Paso lawyer and vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said rumors are circulating that the new fees could be even higher than that.
Iliana Holguin, executive director of the Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services of El Paso, said she was encouraging immigrants to apply for benefits now, before the fees change.
Government officials said the fee increase was needed to hire more staff, train current employees, renovate buildings and improve technology. The CIS is mainly funded by fees, not by taxpayers' money.
"The fee increase will allow us to become a much more sophisticated agency," said Raymond Adams, CIS director in El Paso.
CIS national director Gonzalez said he didn't think fees would keep immigrants from filing.
"I don't think it will be dissuading," he said. "American citizenship is priceless."
But Holguin said fees are already too expensive for some.
"We hear that every day -- people (who were) eligible for benefits years ago and when we ask them why they never applied, they say they didn't have the money," she said.
Holguin said many people end up having to borrow money.
Madrigal said she would sell a house she owns in Mexico or at least borrow against it to pay for her loved ones' green cards.
"I'd like us all to be together. I think that's what all Mexicans who are here (in the United States) want," Madrigal said.
Last week, she and Toni Zamora, an accredited representative from the Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services, figured out the fees and other expenses for Madrigal's 44-year-old husband, her daughters, ages 20, 18 and 12, and her son, age 2.
The five petitions on their behalf will run her $950; the five residency applications will cost $1,650; fingerprinting for the three adults will cost $210; medical exams will be $700 to $1,000, depending on which vaccinations are needed; four photographs per person will cost at least $80; and the DMRS fees are $944. The total cost for five green cards for the Madrigals? $4,534 to $4,834.
Madrigal is lucky. Her husband, a horse trainer who lives in Juárez, does not have to pay the $1,000 fine the government charges each adult undocumented migrant who doesn't want to leave the United States before applying for immigration benefits.
"I have had families of three who all had to pay the fine," Zamora said.
Those who can't pay the fees can apply for a fee waiver from CIS.
The agency in El Paso grants 80 percent of the waiver requests, Adams said, or 20 to 25 waivers a month.
Applicants must write an affidavit and show a pay stub or other evidence of their financial situation.
However, a sponsor like Madrigal will later have to prove she can support immigrant family members at 125 percent of the poverty level.
Once her minor children have green cards, they will automatically be naturalized because Madrigal is a U.S. citizen. But her husband and two grown daughters will be looking at yet more fees to apply for U.S. citizenship.
- Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com
- El Paso Times article at: http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_4829043
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