More Green Needed For Green Cards

Fee For A Permanent Resident Card Will Soon Rise From $395 To More Than $1,000 Per Person

(AP)  The first step toward citizenship, obtaining a green card, will soon surge to more than $1,000, a price tag certain to be a hardship for many immigrant families.

A laborer earning the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour would have to save every penny earned for five weeks to pay for the card, which is issued to permanent legal residents. Immigrants to the United States must hold this status for five years before they can become naturalized citizens.

The new prices, which do not require congressional approval, take effect July 30.

A green card will cost $930, plus an extra $80 for mandatory fingerprints, a total of $1,010. That's up from $395, $325 plus $70. Children 14 and under and people at least 79 years old would be charged less and would not be fingerprinted.

Advocacy groups and some immigrants say the increases are too drastic. The cost of a green card is only a portion of the expenses borne by immigrants seeking citizenship or other benefits.

"They are taking advantage of the fact that people will pay anything to become a citizen," said Unyoung Lee, 24, of Northbrook, Ill., who is trying to file her citizenship application before the prices go up.

Lee came to the United States with her parents and brother in 1992. Because of the high cost, her family took turns applying for naturalization. Lee's mother went first, then her brother. Her father was to go next, but with the fee increases they decided Lee should apply instead.

A college graduate earning about $26,000 a year, Lee works at the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center, where she helps other immigrants navigate the citizenship process. She also is paying off student loans and helps her parents, with whom she lives.

"I just saved up enough money and I'm going to apply next week," Lee said. "Dad is going to have to wait for the fee increase."

Under the current fee structure, the cost for all four family members to naturalize was $1,600. Under the new structure, Lee's father would pay $595, plus the $80 for electronic fingerprints.

There is also a renewal fee.

Immigrants also must pay to get necessary documents from their home countries or local courthouses, and to get that paperwork translated and notarized.

Democrats in Congress have criticized the fee hikes. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., introduced legislation seeking to ease the increases by having Congress allocate money to the federal agency.

Emilio Gonzalez, Citizenship and Immigration Services director, said the fee increases were needed instead "because we need the money" and the fees allow flexibility in adjusting to the application workload. "To do nothing is to invite organizational disaster because we are just not covering the cost of doing business," he said.

The agency expects the increases in green card and other fees to generate an extra $1.1 billion annually, raising its overall fee collection to about $2.35 billion a year. The money would be used to hire and train 1,500 employees, to pay for new or renovated offices and to streamline application processes for legal permanent residency, naturalization, immigrant worker petitions and green card renewals.

Jay Marks, an immigration attorney in Silver Spring, Md., said one of his clients, a legal permanent resident seeking citizenship, wants to bring his wife and four children from Mexico.

To do so, the client, whom Marks declined to identify, must file petitions that are going up in price from $190 to $355. Marks said he advised his client to file two sets of petitions, plus the citizenship application, before the fee hikes kick in.

The cost for that, roughly $1,350 now, would rise to $2,450 after July 30. The client, Marks said, earns $12 to $15 an hour as a landscaper, a job he's worked for 20 years.

It is unfair, Marks said, for the immigration agency to put its administrative costs "on the backs of folks who are already paying taxes in order to get these benefits, many of them working two jobs."

Immigration officials set a $600 fee for green cards for children under 14 who apply with a parent. They pay $225 now.

Aman Kapoor, founder of the advocacy group Immigration Voice, said he and his wife have been waiting for green cards for three and a half years, and have been fingerprinted five times. Each fingerprinting cost them $70 each.

Kapoor figures they spend $700 to $800 for each trip from Tallahassee, Fla., to Jacksonville, Fla., to handle their immigration affairs. He questions the multiple fingerprinting, since his prints haven't changed.

He earns $100,000 a year, and his wife also works, so Kapoor says the fees aren't as painful for them. But, he asks, "Why should anybody have to pay this cost?"

[jachlil]

The following is what was stated in the paper about the ICE doing a sweep in Austin MN. I find it disturbing. Bottom line plain and simple, if you're here illegally you have no rights, if you're here illegally cry discrimination somewhere else.


Victor Contreras, executive director of the Austin Centro Campesino says, "We let people know about their rights to know that when any people come to their houses, they have to show a warrant or an order for arrest and they have to know who they are."

[nottellin1]

This is the thing to do, call the RNC or DNC and tell them you won't donate another cent, even if you nevee have, unless they come out anti this bill. $ will sound louder than letters. Sad.

[tucano2]

Just say NO TO THE SELL OUT OF THE USA!
Contact your Senator today and join the 80 percent of Americans totally opposed to the Amnesty bill now in the Senate.
Amnesty by any other name is AMNESTY. This proposal intends to reward criminals with the object of their crime. This is typical Bush Administration "My way or the highway", if one does not agree with Mr. Bush one must therefore be some kind of subversive. The subversives are those criminals who have invaded our country, and the traitors who support them whether in the Senate or in some church or other providing aid and comfort to them while still enjoying tax-exempt status. What is it about ILLEGAL Mr. Bush and the drones in the Senate will not understand about ILLEGAL ALIENS?



Americans know in their gut Mr. Bush and the drones in the Senate are selling out the USA.
This is the most massive Corporate Welfare piece of Pork ever considered by Congress. It should be rejected with hostility.

[nottellin1]

Oh I finally see the light. After this amnesty and the next amnesty this country will be so terrible to live in that no one will want to emigate here any more. Problem solved!

[sy2502]

Oh yeah, I can see this new measure doing wonders for immigration. What good is it going to do when people can come here illegally, paying exactly $0
then wait for the next amnesty? The only suckers who are going to be hit by this are people like me, DRinUK, and all other LEGAL immigrants who are routinely getting slapped in the face for being good, law abiding people, and getting fcked in the process. Well done!

[wordamus]

My Dear DRinUK,

The reasons are really quite simple why Brits are not allowed in the "green card" lottery.

You will very likely obey all of our laws, you won't work for el cheap0 and, Heavens, you already know the language and will speak while here. And worse of all, and a damning indictment of you, you are offering to come here LEGALLY!

Silly, silly, silly man!

May I suggest, as others have, fly to Mexico City, bus to the border and walk across like the REST OF THE WORLD Does!!!!!!!!!!

[jairod]

oldthought: Seeing a white face in 50 years will be a rare thing - How is that a bad thing?

[ryindy]

"As a Brit who would like to bring over my cash and retire in America, I would like to know why Brits are EXCLUDED from the green card lottery.

It would seem that whilst we are good enough to fight with you in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are Not good enough to live down your street.

It is inconceivable that You allow Pakistani's in preference to indigenous Brits. Since when did America decide Muslims were preferable to Anglo Saxons."
Posted by DRinUK at 07:53 AM : May 31, 2007


DRinUK:
Don't you get it? If you want preferential or even FAiR treatment you're not supposed to come here legally!
Hop a jet from the UK to Mexico and simply walk across the border. Millions do it everyday.
Why be concerned about obeying a few immigration laws? 12-20 million illegals come here, avoid taxes by working off the books, then march in our streets to call us racist or worse.

The day will come when hard working Americans will put a stop to this.

An All-American Anglo-Saxon, Irish, Cherokee Indian.

[twhitne]

Have you all ever look at the most wanted list. gee, the gov. needs to get a clue and stop wanting just that all mighty dollar. Everything you read the on this subject says the Americans do not want these people here. It is the all mighty dollar that is the key to this problem as usual...

[nadeau4201]

Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.

George Bush has signed a directive giving himself extraordinary powers in the event of an emergency that will in essence give him the power to declare marshall law upon the citizens of the United States.This directive called "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive #51 and #20 signed by Bush WITHOUT the approval of congress on May 9,2007.This comes on the heels of the North American Union also being put in place without the approval of congress OR the American citizen.With the amnesty bill 1348 that has provisions to put the NAU on fast track hidden in it,another Mexican Consulate has set up business in Little Rock Arkansas bringing the number of Mexican Consulates in the United States to 47.