Immigration application fees : costing methodology improvements would provide more reliable basis for setting fees : report to congressional requesters.

Format:

Book

Government document

Author/Creator:

United States. Government Accountability Office

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services--Appropriations and expenditures.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services--Rules and practice.

Fees, Administrative--United States--Evaluation.

Fees, Administrative.

User charges--Law and legislation--United States.

User charges.

Naturalization--United States--Costs.

Naturalization.

United States--Emigration and immigration--Costs.

United States.

Expenditures, Public.

Naturalization--Costs.

User charges--Law and legislation.

Genre:

Rules and practice.

Rules.

Physical Description:

ii, 43 pages : digital, PDF file

Other Title:

Costing methodology improvements would provide more reliable basis for setting fees

Place of Publication:

[Washington, D.C.] : U.S. Govt. Accountability Office, [2009]

Summary:

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is responsible for granting or denying immigration benefits to individuals. USCIS charges fees for the millions of immigration applications it receives each year to fund the cost of processing and adjudicating them. In February 2007, USCIS completed a study to determine the full costs of its operations and the level at which application fees should be set to recover those costs. USCIS's new fee schedule increased application fees by a weighted average of 86 percent. Almost 96 percent of USCIS's fiscal year 2008 budget of $2.6 billion was expected to have come from fees. GAO was asked to review the methodology USCIS used in its fee review and controls in place over collection and use of fees. In this report, GAO addresses the consistency of the methodology with federal accounting standards and principles and other guidance, including whether key assumptions and methods were sufficiently justified and documented. The report also addresses internal controls USCIS has in place over the collection and use of fees. GAO makes six recommendations to help USCIS make its costing methodology consistent with standards and principles, strengthen the reliability of the cost assignments it uses to set fees, and better support the reasonableness of its assumptions and methods.

Notes:

Title from title screen (viewed Jan. 29, 2009).

"January 2009."

Includes bibliographical references.

"GAO-09-70."

OCLC:

300276707