By Christina Tuttle
On October 2, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will increase the immigration application fee from $725 to $1,170. USCIS also plans to eliminate the fee waiver for low income residents.
“We see this as just another strategy by the federal government to make citizens unwelcome in this country,” said Melanie Torres, Interim Executive Director of Project Citizenship. Project Citizenship is a nonprofit providing free legal services for 2,000 Massachusetts immigrants per year.
On August 17, Project Citizenship sued the Department of Homeland Security and USCIS for this plan, claiming it discriminates against low-income immigrants. 73% of Project Citizenship’s clients are low-income.
“This is a blatant wealth test for citizenship and a major threat to our mission. We don’t anticipate many of our clients being able to afford the fee,” Torres said.
“Specifically for the Chinese community, this is not always an easy decision. Immigrants have to give up Chinese citizenship,” Torres said. “On top of that, having to pay an exorbitant fee to naturalize is a difficult decision.”
Torres also emphasized the timing of this new fee change.
“This is another strategy to make this country unwelcome to a large portion of the population and the people we serve. This is part of a bigger plan, and it’s not a surprise that it’s happening in front of the 2020 election.”
Every year, Project Citizenship partners with the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement (MOIA) to host Citizenship Day, a large-scale event helping prospective citizens fill out immigration paperwork. Last year, 440 people applied for naturalization at the event. Nearly 60% of those applicants were eligible for a fee waiver. Yusufi Vali, Director of MOIA, anticipates the impacts of the USCIS fee change to be more dramatic.
“Everyone affected by this policy came to the country through appropriate means. All of this administration’s anti-immigration policies have been about preserving power by disenfranchising the people unlikely to vote for their party,” Vali said. “So many people in the city have benefitted from this program. That’s why we’re pushing back.”
Torres also framed efforts to limit citizenship as a problem for electing representative public officials.
“More broadly, this affects our whole country. There are lots of efforts to make the government more representative of the people in it. This keeps certain kinds of immigrants from positions of power,” Torres said.
A child of immigrants himself, Vali emphasized the need for a new administration that supports immigration.
“Voting is really important. Having a new administration will make a huge difference on a whole host of immigration matters,” Vali said. “It’s important to understand the broader challenges we will continue to face. If this administration wins in November, we will see more and more rules targeted at people of color, through immigration restrictions preventing them from being civically active in the country.”
Torres and Vali encourage prospective immigrants to fill out their applications as soon as possible to avoid the October 2 fee increase.
