Groups sue White House to stop changes to U.S. citizenship fee waivers  

People take the oath of citizenship during a naturalization ceremony at the Los Angeles Convention Center in 2017. AP PHOTO

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Immigrant rights supporters sued the Trump administration Oct. 30 to stop changes to a fee waiver process they said would create big barriers to U.S. citizenship for tens of thousands of non-wealthy applicants each year.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the changes on Oct. 25. Under current policy, in order to become U.S. citizens, immigrants must have lived as lawful permanent residents in the United States for five years, speak English, understand U.S. history and civics, and demonstrate a commitment to the U.S. Constitution. There is also a $725 application fee.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services currently waives the fee for those who cannot afford to pay it, approximately 40 percent of applicants. Under rules in place since 2010, lawful permanent residents (green card holders) who receive means-tested benefits from another government agency are automatically entitled to a fee waiver, making the process easy for USCIS to administer and for applicants and service providers to complete.

The new rules will make it much harder to qualify for a fee waiver and will severely cut down U.S. citizenship applications, particularly from low-income applicants, the groups argued. Recent research from Stanford University’s Immigration Policy Lab suggests that the new rules could reduce the number of naturalization applications filed each year by as much as 10 percent.

“Waivers of the $725 application fee make it possible for thousands of hardworking people to become U.S. citizens,” said Anna Gallagher, executive director of CLINIC. “This change is a roadblock on the path to the American Dream. The justification by USCIS — that reducing the number of fee waivers will help fund agency operations — is baseless, in fact it’s counterproductive. Even as USCIS fees keep going up, their case backlogs grow. USCIS mismanagement should not be used to punish immigrants.”

Protect Democracy, Advancing Justice-AAJC, CLINIC the Seattle City Attorney’s Office, and Mayer Brown LLP filed the suit in California on behalf of organizations and communities who will be irreparably harmed by these changes.