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| Citizenship on hold for many immigrants | |
| 2008-02-09 | |
| President Bush is asking Congress to spend money to help businesses root out illegal workers but he did not request additional funds to help legal immigrants become American citizens more quickly. That will be taken care of after any recession is declared to be over. In his budget proposal issued this week, Bush asked for $100 million to expand E-Verify, the system employers use to check whether they are hiring documented workers. He didn't ask Congress to allocate money to chip away at millions of citizenship and other immigration applications that flooded the government last summer, before an increase in the agency's filing fees. Complement this with caps on immigration and stiff fines for employing or housing illegal aliens and that should fund things just dandy. Instead, Citizenship and Immigration Services will rely on $468 million in fees to pay for reducing the backlog by 2010. Those funds are a portion of the total fees that came in with the applications this summer. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the summer's fee increases will give the agency the money it needs to get back on track. "People always argue well you ought to fund this, you ought to fund that. That's great, but the pie is only as big as it is and no one ever comes up with this slice they want to give back in return for this," Chertoff said. Besides, those who want citizenship should be willing to pay for it.
"The backlogs are pretty much back where they were when they started and the agency is back to doing what it used to do, which is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Right now they are taking resources from permanent residence to do citizenship," said Crystal Williams, associate director for programs at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The immigration agency increased fees in July largely to raise about $1.5 billion to pay for modernizing computer equipment, hiring and training more workers, improving field offices and other spending. Becoming a citizen now costs $595, up from $330. The price to get a green card is $1,010, up from $395. Applicants for both pay another $80 each for digital fingerprinting, a $10 increase. Congress gave the immigration agency $100 million a year over five years through 2006 to reduce the immigration backlogs. Agency Director Emilio Gonzalez announced in September 2006 the backlog had fallen to about 139,0000 cases. About 1 million applications in the backlog that were incomplete, from people still awaiting visas or whose FBI name check was delayed, were not counted. The administration deserves credit for securing the $500 million from Congress for the backlog, said Doris Meissner, former Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner under President Clinton. "They broke through the idea that this should just be purely financed by the applicant fees themselves," said Meissner, a senior fellow with Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. "But it was finite." Since 1988, the work of Citizenship and Immigration Services and its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, has been largely paid for by revenue from application fees. Congress has provided money for specific projects over the years, but generally those have been limited to a few years. Sometimes fee money has been diverted for things like detention centers. The result has been an agency constantly shifting resources to respond to the latest crisis, critics say. "Every time the system breaks down, they are incentivizing people to say, 'Screw the system, I'll just overstay my visa.'" said James Jay Carifano, a research fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. Immigration officials say they will be able to chip away at the backlogs as 1,500 new workers are hired and trained. Things should be back where they were before the application spike by 2010, the agency's spokeswoman Chris Rhatigan said. Williams thinks that's an optimistic prediction. The 7.7 million applications the agency received last year amount to about three years of work, she said. Yeesh. Al Gore should be totally debunked by the time they take care of that backlog! | |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #6 Generally speaking The Health Care System is on or near the brink of failure everywhere along our Southern Border. As the strain builds everywhere in the system you can accurately say that the CONTRACT between CITIZENS and our Government is breaking down and failing! The CONTRACT has been BREACHED in many cases Dr. Steve because our Government refuses to say NO to all the illegal immigrants who have broken the law by breaking into the USA and squatting here! Then our Licentious Government in full contempt of our hard earned taxes, Goes on a Spending SPREE with our money by casting Hundreds of Millions of Dollars on services for entire load of illegals up here. Yes that's right, our own government steals from our Old Citizens funds which were contracted with them to go into the system for them when they retire Dr. Steve. Here are just a few of the increased costs for us because of Illegal Immigrants. [Not counting the murders, theft, injuries, heart break and loss etc.] Increased INS Increased Border Guards Increased Border Patrol Increased Detention Centers Increased Federal Court Cost Load Increased State Court Cost Load Increased Local Court Cost Load Increased Local Jail Costs Increased State Prison Coasts Increased Federal Prison Coasts Probation Costs Parole Costs Deportation Costs Increased Juvenile System Costs Increased Local Police Costs Increased Local State Police Costs Increased Federal Police Costs School Costs K-12 Teachers Costs Book Costs Cafeteria Costs, Food Costs School Plant and Buildings Costs Heating, Cooling and Lighting Costs Fuel Costs, Gasoline and Diesel Costs College and University Costs Medical Costs Prenatal till Death etc etc etc etc |
| Posted by: RD 2008-02-09 23:33 |
| #5 SW - agreed as long as those entering can pay for themselves (with or without family help). It is not our responsibility to pay for the future medical treatment or retirement of foreign citizens related downstream to naturalized citizens, izzit? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-02-09 21:31 |
| #4 I like hard working immigrants. I don't like free loaders. Our laws have been changed to make it easier to be a freeloader. That's a problem. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-02-09 21:06 |
| #3 Bluetooth, I must say I find your comments pretty darned repugnant. I have no problem whatsoever allowing families to stay together. This country was built on families. Having Mom and Pops come over after Sonny has made it good is wonderful incentive for Sonny to become a productive citizen. We've been allowing families to come over for a couple hundred years. I'd be interested in knowing how much of your family came over on the boat, and how many followed after Great-great-great-great-grand Uncle Jomosing wrote a letter back to the old country. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2008-02-09 19:46 |
| #2 "Yes, but let's not make it too difficult. The people who immigrated here legally and now want to be citizens are great people, and we should be proud that they want to be one of us." WRONG. They've been allowed to immigrate under far too lenient criteria. Since we don't need any more people, the ones we do allow to come should come with qualifications and capital that will be of real use to the country. Most of the legal immigrants coming now are off-quota family reunification immigrants. Just because they're related to someone who got in earlier should not automatically allow them to come also. For example, it does us absolutely no good to allow some guy's aged parents to immigrate if the first thing that happens is for the citizen to sign them up for old age assistance. The family reunification quota exemptions have burdened us with a LOT of underqualified welfare cases. Ask any West Coast or Fla Social Security worker. |
| Posted by: Jomosing Bluetooth8431 2008-02-09 18:12 |
| #1 Sometimes fee money has been diverted for things like detention centers. Buried near the bottom, how illegals screw those attempting to do it legally. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-02-09 09:32 |