Sen. Mitt Romney is asking the Department of Homeland Security to explain proposed changes that would significantly increase the cost of searching and requesting copies of federal genealogical records.
In a letter dated Tuesday to Chad Wolf, the acting Homeland Security secretary, and Kenneth Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Romney asks for additional information on the budgets and expenses of the USCIS’s Genealogy Program and questions the rational behind raising search fees from $65 to $240 and records fees from $65 to $385.
“If this rule takes effect,” Romney wrote, “a family historian would need to pay $625 to search and obtain a single file on a relative.