Immigrants Who Can't Afford Fees For Legal Status Can Apply For Waiver
USCIS has proposed a new form to make the process more efficient
By Lucy Nalpathanchil - WNPR
Published: Jul 21, 2010
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Immigrants Who Can't Afford Fees For Legal Status Can Apply For Waiver
Immigrants seeking legal status in this country have always had the opportunity to apply for a fee waiver if they couldn't afford application or petition fees. Now as WNPR's Lucy Nalpathanchil reports, US Citizenship and Immigration Services or USCIS has proposed a new form to help make the process more efficient.
Alejandro Mayorkas is Director of USCIS. He's the child of Cuban immigrants and former U.S attorney for Southern California who was appointed to the job last May. Once he became Director, he sought community input on ways to improve the federal immigration agency.
"When I first joined the agency, one of the first things I heard was a concern about the lack of consistency and clarity in the fee waiver process, albeit it having been around for years."
USCIS has now proposed a standardized form for individuals seeking a fee waiver to make the process more transparent and consistent. Currently, individuals apply for a waiver by writing an unsworn statement and attaching documents that show they're in financial need. There are many immigration applications with varying fees. For example, a person applying for a green card, could pay over $1000. Many of the costs have doubled since July of 2007 when application fees were increased.
The agency could not provide by deadline figures on whether the number of people applying for fee waivers have increased since then but Mayorkas says just last year, about 90,000 individuals applied for a fee waiver and over 60,000 were approved.
He explains why the federal government even bothers to provide the fee waiver.
"We have made as a government the policy determination that individuals, immigrants who are seeking benefits or who are eligible to receive benefits should not be precluded from access to this country because they don't have the financial means."
The proposed fee waiver form can be viewed at regulations.gov.
Public comments will be accepted until the middle of September.
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