New Immigration Fees

On top of the fact that Congress could not reach a consensus for a comprehensive and humane immigration reform, Washington announced that the new immigration fees will take effect starting this July 30th. This increase in fees is primarily destined to “Build an Immigration Service for the 21st Century” that will translate into modernized immigration offices, improved background checks on immigrants, and faster processing of applications. The changes will be realized by September 2009.

Let’s look at these fees and the percentage increase:

1) Application for status change (Form I-485): from $325 to $930 (286% Increase)
2) Remove conditions on Permanent Resident Status (Form I-829): from $475 to $2,930 (617% Increase)
3) Application for U.S. Citizenship (Form N-400): from $330 to $675 (205% Increase)
4) Appeal Form (Form I-209B): from $385 to $585 (152% Increase)

The USCIS explained that the increase in prices is also due to the high deficit of the agency of $1 billion dollars per year.

How timely!

My question is this: Would the government even dare to increase the price to obtain American passports by anywhere from 150% to 600%? Of course not. We would see the streets flooded with protests. We have seen it with gas prices, which is not even a significant increase in price in comparison with the new immigration fees.