At a hearing today of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, Congresswoman Roybal-Allard called on US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to move away from a flawed business model that shifts almost all of the agency’s costs onto applicants.  Noting that a recent fee hike largely paid for USCIS’s expensive transition to a digital system for processing applications, Congresswoman Roybal-Allard urged the agency to seek more direct funding to reduce backlogs and keep fees within the reach of hardworking legal immigrants.  

“The agency’s current overreliance on fees forces thousands of legal permanent residents to indefinitely defer their dreams of citizenship because they can’t afford the expense of applying and limits the agency’s ability to cope with changing workloads,” said Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard who is a leader in the fight to reform our broken immigration system. 

Specifically, when applications rise dramatically as they did in 2007, the agency lacks the flexibility to satisfy sharp increases in demand for its services, leading to backlogs and long delays in processing paperwork.  Similarly, when fewer immigrants apply, as in the past fiscal year, USCIS faces falling revenues and difficult budgetary shortfalls. 

In response to the congresswoman’s questions, Director Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged these challenges but indicated his agency was working to address them by streamlining its operations.

At the hearing, Congresswoman Roybal-Allard also pressed Mayorkas to do more to confront the growing incidence of so-called “notario fraud.”  An increasing number of unscrupulous individuals calling themselves “immigration specialists” or “notarios” are deceiving immigrants desperate to remain in the country with false promises of legalization.  They charge exorbitant fees and perform substandard work that often jeopardizes their clients’ chances of remaining in the country.  Beyond losing huge sums of money, the victims of these con artists frequently endure lengthy setbacks in obtaining immigration benefits and some have even been deported.

In response, Director Mayorkas said that USCIS was conducting extensive community outreach, posting notices on its website and developing a strategic plan to educate applicants about the dangers of immigration fraud.