All around the globe people are desperate to settle in US and those who are already there, dream of becoming permanent citizens of the country. Seeing the trend immigration officials in US are proceeding with plans that will double the cost of applying for becoming US citizen and triple the fee for seeking its legal permanent residency. This increase in fees will come in effect from July 30. The fees to become a US Citizen will rise to USD 595 from the present fee of USD 330. The electronic fingerprint fee is hiked to USD 80 from USD 70. On the other hand for legal permanent residency and fingerprints the cost will be USD 1,010 for those who are over 14. The present cost for it is only USD 325. Officials with Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, said: The increases are needed to improve service, hire 1,500 workers, improve offices, equipment and systems to process applications. Many immigration groups and some Democratic members of Congress in the country have protested for the hike in the fee saying that many immigrants will not be able to afford the citizenship and legal immigration. They also had queries about the services that will follow this fee. On Tuesday, 29, the CIS Director Emilio Gonzalez said : This agency is fee based, 99 per cent of our budget comes from user fees. We need to be the agency people expect us to be. We need to undertake reforms …. The only way to get from there to here is to have the financial resources to do that. The new fees was supposed to be published and posted in the last month in the Federal Register and CIS website respectively.
May
10
