Action Needed from Genealogists to Prevent Unreasonable Fee Hike!

Did you know the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, has a genealogy records program? This program gives the public access to copies of immigration and naturalization records dating from the beginning of federal immigration records in 1893 into the 1950s. However, the program has not been supported adequately, and now, because of a proposed hike in fees, these valuable documents may become far less available to genealogists. Read on for more information and how you can help to save access to these records.

The USCIS genealogy records program was established in 2008 specifically for genealogists and with the hope of avoiding the time-consuming Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request process. The program originally had a staff of six persons, but that has changed, and the entire program is now in jeopardy. Here is what you need to know: 

There are six USCIS collections involved, including:

• Naturalization certificates, 1906–1956
• Visas, 1924–1944
• Registries created when no naturalizations are found, 1906–1924
• Alien registrations, 1940–1944
• Historical alien files, 1944–1951
• Correspondence relating to 1903–1950 immigrations and naturalizations (These records are already at the National Archives (NARA) but indexed only by USCIS and so require a USCIS request for an access number.)

These collections contain millions of records each, a total of somewhere around twenty million records or more. Only about three million have been digitized; most remain as paper only. Records found in these collections include immigrants’ initial federal immigration forms stating where they came from, naturalization applications, original birth and marriage certificates, and many additional records or letters presenting an immigrant’s case when problems were encountered.

These collections are now in danger of becoming much less accessible. 

• In early January 2023, USCIS proposed a significant price increase to retrieve information from these record sets, which actually should have been transferred to the National Archives, which routinely handles genealogy requests. (See the last bullet.) 
• At present it costs $65 to obtain an index search, then another $65 for a record search. The proposed price is to increase to $100 for the index search and $240 for the follow-up record search, a 269% increase. But in its proposal, USCIS provides no calculations on which to base such a large fee increase. 
• If the fees are increased this much, many genealogists will not be able to afford these requests. 
• Furthermore, genealogists now are receiving responses signed by the FOIA staff, suggesting requests are not avoiding the lengthy FOIA process after all, while costing extra beyond the normal FOIA fees. 
• A records search is currently estimated to be taking an average of two years, a wait time exponentially greater than in 2020 and also far exceeding the originally expected ninety days. 
• The transfer of all of these records and their indexes was supposed to have begun in 2007, but that has never happened, leaving the records languishing where access is severely limited.

Several factors are potentially contributing to this problem. 

1. The USCIS genealogy program has no separate budget. 
2. The genealogy program staff of six persons seems to have been reduced further. And these collections require both training and experience to use efficiently. 
3. USCIS probably is under political pressure to prioritize and staff other important immigration and naturalization activities.

Here is what we all need to do ASAP!

You may have read about this issue in the past few weeks as the crisis has spread in the genealogy community, but if you haven't, we urge you to become familiar with the details. A group called Records, Not Revenue has developed an informational website at https://www.recordsnotrevenue.com/ that has directions for learning more, seeing examples of what is in the files, ideas for comments, and directions for sending in comments to senators and representatives. This is a vitally important, time-sensitive issue; the deadline for us to make our voices heard is Monday, 6 March 2023. The more different individuals who respond, the more likely it is that some appropriate action will occur.

Some food for thought: While we can understand USCIS’s other priorities, as genealogists we need to respond to the price increase proposal by suggesting more affordable prices. We also want to encourage USCIS to quickly process the transfer of records and indexes scheduled to go to NARA. And, as the Records, Not Revenue website points out, even if your ancestors are not included in these record sets, "What can be done to one type of records can be done to others!" PLEASE, don't put this off! Share this with your friends and fellow genealogists. Encourage everyone to take a few minutes to visit the Records, Not Revenue website. Get educated on what is happening, and start sending off those comments!

(Thanks to Carol Whitton, StLGS Projects Director, for writing this week's post!)