SACRAMENTO, CA—The California State Assembly has voted to approve a resolution introduced by Assemblyman Jose Solorio (D-Anaheim), that calls on President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress to oppose the proposed 69% fee increase in the cost that legal immigrants must pay to undergo the naturalization process to become U.S. Citizens.  The Assembly approved the resolution, Assembly Joint Resolution (AJR) 18, yesterday on a 61-10 vote.  The resolution will now be sent to the California State Senate for consideration.   

Assemblyman Solorio urges members of the public to contact the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to oppose the fee increase. (To comment on the proposed fee increase, refer to the contact information at the bottom of this release.)

“Achieving the dream of U.S. citizenship is a hope that many of our country’s legal immigrants strive to attain, yet achieving it will become increasingly difficult if the proposed fee increase for naturalization is approved,”  states a letter that Assemblyman Jose Solorio has written to U.S. Congressional Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). 

On January 31, 2007, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a proposal that would raise the fees for beginning the naturalization process from $400 to $675—an increase of 69%.  The USCIS anticipates that the fee hike will go into effect in June 2007.  There are at least 2.3 million legal permanent residents in California who are eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship and nearly two-thirds (64%) of these households have annual incomes that are less than $25,000 a year, according to 2000 Census data.

“As an immigrant myself who is the son and grandson of farm workers, I know first hand how hard it is for working families to come up with the money to complete the naturalization process.  Naturalization fees have been soaring since 1991, when newcomers paid $90 to apply for U.S. citizenship.  This proposed fee increase will put citizenship out of reach for many families,” Solorio said.

The USCIS believes that it needs this massive fee hike to pay for major infrastructure investments and process enhancements, such as improvements in the timeliness of background checks, modernization of its outdated business systems through technology upgrades, facilities improvements and enhancements in its personnel training and recruitment programs. 

The current system of financing immigration services relies almost exclusively on application fees to fund the delivery of services to immigrants.  “I believe that our system of funding immigration services should be a partnership between newcomers and the federal government because the reality is that the proposed increase is way too much for these working class families to be paying,” said Solorio.       
      
You can comment on the proposed fee increase using any of the following methods:

--By email: Send your comments to OSComments@dhs.gov, include the docket number (USCIS-2006-0044) in the subject line of the message.

  --By fax: Federal eRulemaking Portal at 866-466-5370

--By U.S. Mail: Director, Regulatory Management Division, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, 111 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, 3rd Floor, Washington, DC 20529. To ensure proper handling, please reference DHS Docket No. USCIS-2006-0044 on your correspondence.

Assemblyman Jose Solorio represents the Sixty-Ninth Assembly District, which includes the cities of Anaheim, Garden Grove, and Santa Ana.  For more information about Assemblyman Solorio you can visit www.assembly.ca.gov/solorio.