Information contained in this publication is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or opinion, nor is it a substitute for the professional judgment of an attorney.
The Houston Chronicle reports that with a budget shortfall of $164 million, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is considering increasing the fees it charges for immigration applications. USCIS also is considering possible cost-saving measures, including staff layoffs. As this blog previously noted, immigration applications (e.g., citizenship, permanent residency), a revenue source for USCIS, have decreased in recent years, thereby straining USCIS’s budget. In fiscal year 2009, citizenship applications decreased by over 25% (1 million in FY 2008; 733,000 in FY 2009). Although USCIS improved its citizenship application processing time after the most recent fee increases (July 2007), it may experience difficulty maintaining the five-month average processing time if the Obama administration succeeds in implementing a legalization program for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.