The Orlando Sentinel reported this week that the federal government is considering raising filing fees on applications for immigration benefits to raise revenue.

Alejandro Mayorkas, director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), told reporters Wednesday in Los Angeles,

“The agency is considering cutting costs, raising fees or reorienting revenue in the next two years to alleviate the problem.”

USCIS officials said that the lack of revenue is because of the current economic crisis which has led to an overall drop in applications being submitted.  

The agency saw a tremendous spike in applications and consequently, hired additional officers back in 2007 in anticipation of the filing fee increase.  The highest increase in filing fees were for citizenship applications in which the fee went from $400 to $675.

The USCIS is a fee based agency.  It received over 7.7 million applications for immigration benefits in prior to July 30, 2007.   Since then, the filing of applications have dropped significantly and the USCIS is now having to make difficult decisions to resolve their revenue problem.