ALBUQUERQUE — The head of the federal agency in charge of processing millions of applications for citizenship and immigration to the U.S. says he understands the hardships that raising application fees would have on the community.
But Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, stressed Thursday that raising fees is only one option the agency has as it grapples with a revenue shortfall. The agency depends on fees from applications for immigration-related services to pay for its operations.
“The potential fee increase is not something that is taken lightly. We understand very well its impact,” Mayorkas said. “In my personal view, it would be something of last resort and . . . it should be as respectful as possible of the burden it in fact imposes.”
The comments come a day after Mayorkas announced that an increase in fees was among the options the agency has to make up for a projected $118 million shortfall.
He said asking Congress for a greater appropriation and making cuts within the agency are other ways CIS can absorb declining revenues, but the agency has made no decisions.
Agency officials have blamed the revenue shortfall on an overall drop in immigration-related applications being filed amid an economic slump.
In 2007, the agency increased the cost of applying for citizenship from $400 to $675, and applications surged before the higher fees took effect. The number of applications for both naturalization and status adjustments have plummeted since then, according to statistics kept by the agency.
Immigrant advocates argue that the fees are high enough now and that another fee increase would only hamper the number of applicants.
Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C., called it a vicious cycle. If the agency doesn’t have enough revenue to process applications in a timely manner, it might be forced to raise fees, and that could lead to even fewer applicants.
