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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Sun-Times LTE: This is Freedom of Choice?
By Jan Schakowsky @ 4:22 PM

Chicago Sun-Times
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

On Monday the Bush administration took a giant step backward when it put the dream of citizenship further out of reach for tens of thousands of Illinois families. On Monday the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services increased its immigration application fees by almost 66 percent.
The fee increase will have a devastating impact on millions of immigrants who are trying to become full, active and legal participants in our society. The increase means that new immigrants would be forced to pass a means test in order to become citizens.

According to the agency, the fee increase will cover the costs of processing hundreds of thousands of immigration applications and petitions every year. Although it faces a backlog of more than 700,000 applications, the agency has not asked Congress for money to deal with this influx. Instead, they decided to offset their operating expenses by putting the entire financial burden on the backs of hardworking immigrants who are playing by the rules.

It is clear that the Bush administration devised this plan to make the cost of becoming a citizen so prohibitive that people would decide not to immigrate to this country.

In March, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and I introduced the Citizenship Promotion Act, which would have authorized Congress to appropriate funds to the agency for the immigration application process so that immigrants are not forced to bear the entire cost of their application. The measure would have also expedited the application process by supporting efforts to educate immigrants about the legal citizenship process, making electronic filing voluntary, and requesting a Government Accountability Office investigation into delays into the background check process.

Although we were unable to stop these increases, I will continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate and the House to reduce the financial burden for tens of thousands of immigrants in Illinois who are legally trying to pursue the dream of becoming American citizens.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)

Comments

I think this is a VERY IMPORTANT issue and I think we need to have an OPEN FORUM discussion on this. It is understandable that when switching nations individuals need to meet certain requirements and in some cases "buy into it" so to speak... as to what extent, is something that I think we need to discuss...

What if people who have been life-long US CITIZENS can not pass the means test? ~ are they going to be pushed out on a BARGE to sea?

posted @ Friday, October 26, 2007 5:44 PM by neil kenes

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