Talk about broken borders

I hope that the title of this post is not misunderstood as an endorsement of a certain fat, Irish talking head--oh, so many to pick from--but as far as that statement is concerned, I have to agree with the pasty xenophobe: the immigration agency is fucked up. Because rednecks and other subsets of Republican dumbasses don't like paying taxes, the Congress set up a system where fees from immigrants finance the Citizenship and Immigration Services. Sounds fair enough.

Actually, no.

What's happened is that the agency depends on these fees so it's in its best interest to make the application period as expensive and long as possible, because since processes can take up to three years, it can plan its future budget depending on new applications. Presented with a plan that would shorten the application period from three years to just three months, cut the average 45 hours--45 HOURS!--immigrants spend in lines by more than a third, and save $350 million, the agency said "nein."

And this is just one in the litany of problems. The agency has been running in the red, so that new fees are used to pay for application processes started years ago, and, up until 9/11, it depended on a computer-less system of filing and archiving applications. But wait, there's more:

By 2004, Citizenship and Immigration was "looking at maybe $500 million or more in the hole," said William Yates, then head of domestic operations.

As backlogs and deficits grew, the agency ratcheted up charges to cover its budget. The longer applicants waited, the more they paid.

"We were really operating a Ponzi scheme," said Yates, who retired last year after 31 years at the agency. "The money that current applicants were paying, we were using to adjudicate older cases.

For example, Citizenship and Immigration set up a Chicago office strictly to accept signed applications and checks, even though most applications are not approved. Officials said they created the system because the Treasury Department offered to set it up at no cost, and the agency doesn't like to process applications before being paid to do so.

In 2005, it raised $230 million by charging green-card applicants for about 1 million temporary work and travel permits they needed while waiting for their cases to be processed. About 325,000 interim permits went to people whose applications were later denied, creating a security risk, Khatri said.

The agency also charges a $1000 premium fee to speed up applications, but of course, the process is already so slow that most applicants pay the $1000 premium, which kind of defeats its purpose. Maybe they'll start a premium premium service.

And finally, the agency is working on finalizing a program this week that would raise fees by about 50 percent. I could quote that crap about giving us your poor, huddled masses right here, but that would almost be too easy.