Mike Honda: “I would like to thank the chairman, the ranking member, and members of the subcommittee for recognizing the importance…”

“I would like to thank the chairman, the ranking member, and members of the subcommittee for recognizing the importance of supporting a path for legal immigrants to become citizens. The United States has a special interest in and draws unique benefits from extending citizenship to immigrants who have met legal residence, character, English, and civics knowledge requirements. I appreciate the chairman's willingness to encourage U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to keep the naturalization application fee affordable so that we don't prevent legal immigrants from pursuing citizenship simply because they cannot afford it. But I am concerned that the way the bill approaches funding for immigrant integration grant programs could undermine this effort to keep fees affordable. {time} 2100 Integrating immigrants strengthens their commitment to the United States and makes us a stronger and more prosperous democracy. Integration grants have proven to be a cost-effective means of encouraging immigrants to integrate. It is unfair that the cost and limited availability of citizenship education and legal assistance is the reason that many of the more than 8 million legal and taxpaying permanent residents are unable to naturalize, despite their eligibility to do so. This bill only allows funding of immigrant integration programs through fees collected, departing from past practice of providing discretionary funding to support the program.…”