Immigration application fees [electronic resource] : costing methodology improvements would provide more reliable basis for setting fees : report to congressional requesters.
Title from title screen (viewed on Jan. 29, 2009). "January 2009." Includes bibliographical references. "GAO-09-70."
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.
OCLC:
(OCoLC)300276707
Locations:
USUX851 -- Iowa State University - Parks Library (Ames)
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.