When Victoria van Basten began putting together her paperwork to apply for U.S. citizenship, her plan was to have one consultation with an immigration lawyer, to keep costs as low as possible.
“We just knew there was no way to pay for a lawyer’s time,” van Basten said. “Not with all the filing fees and things that go along with immigration.”
And those fees soon may nearly double under the Trump administration.
Earlier in October, naturalization application fees were set to increase from $640 to $1,160. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says that fees fund 97% of its budget and that without the increases the agency would be underfunded by $1 billion each year. The fee increases are tied up in a court battle.
Van Basten, an Ashford resident who came from South Africa two years ago, was able to file her application for free with guidance from Massachusetts-based Immigration Help.org. Still, she was left to cover other associated fees.
“It’s devastating how expensive this can be,” she said. “It doesn’t feel fair that it costs that much to attempt to immigrate. It feels like it segregates who could even possibly apply and who couldn’t.”
ImmigrationHelp.org has helped over 200 immigrants file their forms for free, including DACA renewals and family green cards. Fernando Urbina, director of outreach, says he remembers how complicated his mother’s naturalization process was, so wanted to be part of a team that helped streamline this complex procedure.
“And that definitely has influenced the way that I interacted with the organization and the work that I do,” Urbina said. “I also have many friends who are DACA recipients who are immigrants, and so I envision a country where they will be able to enjoy the same rights that I am able to enjoy, as a U.S. citizen.”
While the path to obtaining citizenship may be long and complicated, Urbina says ImmigrationHelp.org wants to increase the accessibility for people, especially low-income families.
“The way we work is that individuals come to our site, they enter their information into a very easy-to-use TurboTax-style application. This application screens the eligibility cases and then prepares the required forms and supporting documents that they need,” he said.
Once documents are created, the team reviews the application for free, saving users costly attorney’s fees. A federal judge has granted an injunction against the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ attempt to increase fees in late September, but Urbina says this is a temporary victory.
Brenda León is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.
