What You Need To Know:
US Citizenship and Immigration
Service
fee-for-service genealogy
program
Jan Meisels Allen,
the Director of IAJGS and Chairperson, Public Records Access Monitoring
Committee wrote a comprehensive article about the change in record
requests. IAJGS is the International Association of Jewish
Genealogical Societies-- we have 75 member societies worldwide
representing 10,000 individuals. More information on IAJGS may be
obtained at: www.iajgs.org. If your readers are interested in Jewish
Genealogy our annual conference is coming up August 17-22, 2008 at the
Chicago Marriott Downtown Miracle Mile... more information on this great
conference is available at
www.chicago2008.org
In her role as
Chairperson of Public Records Access Monitoring Committee chairperson,
Jan tries to keep abreast of all legislative and regulatory issues that
effect access to records
“Two years ago the
US Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS), formerly
called the INS,
proposed rules to establish a fee-for-service genealogy
program. The final
rule was published in the Federal Register on May 15,
2008.
You may view/download the final rule at:
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-10651.pdf . The final rule
goes
into effect on
August 13, 2008.
The reason for the
rule was to streamline and improve the process for
acquiring
genealogically relevant historical records of deceased
individuals. Due
to the demand for documents which created a backlog,
requests under the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) took months if not
years to complete.
As a result of the
comments made to the proposed rule the amount per index
or record/file
request (from a microfilm) will be $20 and $35 for a textual
record.
The original proposal was a range of $16-$45 for an index search
and $16 to $45 for
a record/file microfilm request and $26 to $55 for a copy
of a textual
document.
The reason the
USCIS must charge for the documents and any search for the
records is due to
other regulations by the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB rule form
1993) all government offices are required that user fees
recover the full
cost of services provided. USCIS is also mandated to charge
a fee to recover
the full costs or providing research and information due to
the Immigration
and Nationality Act.
The types of
historical records available under the new program are: -
Naturalization
certificate files(C-files) from September 27, 1906-April 1,
1956 (from all
federal, state, municipal
courts and more);
- Microfilmed
alien registration forms from August 1, 1940 to March 31,
1944;
- Visa files from
July 1, 1924 to March 31, 1944;
- Registry files
from March 2, 1929 to March 31, 1944;
- Alien files
numbered below 8 million and dated prior to May 1,1951;
More information
on each of these is contained in the final rule.
To request records
under this new program, a special form must be used: Form
G-1041 for index
or Form G 1041A for records request. I did not find the new
forms posted as
yet to the USCIS website. Once the program begins, requests
may be submitted
electronically on the electronic forms through its site
http://www.USCIS.gov . When
requests are made online then payment form used
MUST be a credit
card.
Information that
must be contained on the form is included in the new rule.
When submitting a
written request, the only form of payment accepted is a
cashier's check or
money order in the exact amount. As genealogical request
information may
only be obtained on deceased individuals, the subject is
presumed dead if
their birth date is over 100 years old. For those less than
100 information
(primary or secondary document- such as death record,
published
obituary, etc) must be provided to the satisfaction of the USCIS
that the
individual is indeed deceased.”
