U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Immigration Fees and Adjudication Costs: Proposed Adjustments and Historical Context

William A. Kandel
Analyst in Immigration Policy

Chad C. Haddal
Specialist in Immigration Policy

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed a fee schedule for immigration services that increases fees by a weighted average of 10%. Under the proposed schedule issued June 11, 2010, most fees would increase, several would decrease, and the naturalization fee would remain unchanged. USCIS has also proposed three new fees for services the agency currently performs. The proposed fee schedule results from an FY2009 USCIS fee review. It represents the agency's attempt to (1) more accurately align processing revenues with costs, (2) redistribute costs of some processing activities for which no fees can be charged, (3) impose new fees to capture costs for currently unreimbursed activities, and (4) resolve anticipated budget shortfalls.

Charging fees for federal government services has long been practiced. Such fees have usually been charged for service cost recovery only to individuals who use the service or benefit—so called user fees. As immigration services grow in complexity, questions arise over what service users should pay. The user fees debate has produced two positions: (1) an agency should either recover all of its costs through user fees, and (2) an agency should only recover costs directly associated with providing services. USCIS last increased its fees for immigration and naturalization services in July 2007 by an average of 88%. At that time, cost estimates by USCIS and the Government Accountability Office found that the agency's pre-2007 fee structure was insufficient to maintain proper service levels and avoid backlogs.

How USCIS should be funded remains a divisive issue. Fee increase proponents, who favor greater agency cost recovery, contend that U.S. immigration services are a "good deal" by world standards. They also feel that the cost of processing immigrant applications should not be borne by taxpayers, particularly during an economic downturn. Fee increase opponents, who favor more focused cost recovery, are concerned about detrimental impacts of fee increases on lower-income families, and further believe that the push to make the agency entirely fee-reliant in past years has increased the application backlog and promoted backlog definition changes. Concerns of fee increase proponents and opponents have acquired heightened significance with proposed comprehensive immigration reform.

USCIS obtains over 80% of its funding from fee revenue. After consistently declining from FY2003 to FY2008, the portion of USCIS' budget from appropriations increased consistently for fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011. In its FY2011 budget, the agency has requested additional funds to defray the cost of military naturalizations and refugee and asylee applications, thereby shifting this cost from immigration service applicants to U.S. taxpayers. Although the agency has been appropriated several hundred million dollars in the past decade, these appropriations have largely been directed toward specific projects, such as the backlog reduction initiative. Consequently, USCIS fee revenue must cover overhead and adjudication costs for the agency to operate efficiently.

Issues for Congress to consider might include how USCIS fees have been computed and justified; whether anticipated revenue from revised fees will cover agency costs; how fiscal shortfalls might be funded; and what impact higher fees might have on the applicant pool. This report will be updated this year after public comments to the proposed fee schedule are published.


Date of Report: June 16, 2010
Number of Pages: 41
Order Number: RL30404
Price: $29.95

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