City officials should move to reduce the soaring cost of naturalization for New York’s 670,000 legal immigrants eligible to become U.S. citizens, city Controller Scott Stringer urges in a new report.  Federal fees for citizenship applications have skyrocketed from just $60 in 1989 to a whopping $680 today, Stringer notes in a report to be released Wednesday. Even after accounting for inflation, that’s more than a 500% increase.  On top of that, immigrants face “additional costs that can run into the thousands of dollars, including the cost of English classes and consultations with immigration lawyers,” the report said.  The gamut of expenses now poses an obstacle to citizenship for legal immigrants with low incomes. And while federal law allows for fee waivers, a recent study found the waiver process so confusing and cumbersome that only 3% of citizenship applicants in 2011 managed to qualify for it.  “There is an economic barrier to citizenship for poor immigrants,” Stringer told the Daily News. “They don’t have the dollars to become citizens, and that’s against everything we stand for.”  Instead, Stringer wants the federal government to lower the fees, which now generate 95% of the entire funding for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. But that’s highly unlikely, given the current Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate.  So his report also proposes some measures New York City — the nation’s historic gateway to immigration — can take to defray naturalization costs.  The most novel idea is a new tax credit for employers who are willing to subsidize the citizenship application fees of their workers.  In addition, Stringer wants City Hall to restore funding for more than 6,000 seats in adult literacy classes that were cut from last year’s city budget.  He also calls for increased city funding for free immigration counseling by community-based nonprofits.  GONZALEZ: CUOMO AIDS IMMIGRANTS, FOLLOWS IN DAD'S FOOTSTEPS  All three of these proposals would reduce out-of-pocket costs for thousands of citizenship applicants.  Remember, we’re talking here about legal immigrants, people who have abided by the all rules and who have already incurred substantial costs just to become legal permanent residents.  “The whole process is so costly, it’s crazy,” said one of those immigrants, Natasha, who came here from Eastern Europe 13 years ago on a student visa and who was highlighted in Stringer’s report.  “I feel privileged because I learned to speak English very well, and am a college graduate and could use the Internet to find a lot of information by myself,” Natasha told The News. She has asked that her real name not be used.  She was making $13 an hour at a nonprofit group, and her husband was completing his own college education, Natasha said, when she first sought to gain temporary legal status several years ago, then a permanent green card.  “I’ve already had to spend more than $3,000 on the permanent residency process,” she said.  “And I’m lucky I had my family back home to help me.”  Now she faces another $680 in fees — $595 for the citizenship application and $85 for a “biometric fee.”  In Stringer’s view, the last lines of that legendary Emma Lazarus poem at the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” should not be marred in our time by the phrase: “Providing they can pay the fees.”
It's becoming more expensive for immigrants to apply for citizenship, and one politician wants to do something about it.