On 19 March 2008, an Opinion piece was printed in the New York Times that criticized the handling of applications and rise in fee by USCIS in Summer 2008. The article stated that: "The disaster erupted when the agency jacked up the price of its services by an average of 66 percent, a nasty bite for the immigrant families whose fees provide nearly all the money that keeps the rickety system going. Mr. Gonzalez justified the increases by promising that they would lead to better service and shorter waits. The agency expected that the new fees would spur only a negligible increase in citizenship applications. But applications spiked 350 percent last June and July over the same period in 2006. More than three million applications of all types flooded in last summer. The five-month wait for citizenship that Mr. Gonzalez promised is now 14 months to 16 months. Many immigrants who had dearly hoped to vote in 2008 will have to sit the election out.

Those who know the citizenship system say it's dumbfounding that Mr. Gonzalez did not foresee the surge, not only because the fees went way up, but also because 2008 is a presidential election year ? always a time when would-be citizens hurry to get their papers in."

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