WASHINGTON (AP):

The Bush administration is proposing to nearly double the cost of becoming a citizen of the United States and drastically raise the cost of becoming a legal permanent resident.

Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, yesterday announced that it wants to raise the application fee for citizenship from US$330 (J$22,110) to US$595 (J$39,865). It wants the fee for becoming a legal permanent resident to move from US$180 (J$12,000) to US$1,370 (J$91,790).

Improved service

"As a fee-based agency we must be able to recover the cost necessary to administer an efficient and secure immigration system that ultimately improves service delivery, prevents future backlogs, closes security gaps and furthers our modernisation efforts," said Emilio Gonzalez, CIS director.

The agency said the new fees would reduce average application processing times by the end of September 2009.

Fees for a wide variety of immigration services would rise an average of 66 per cent.

Applicants now pay a US$70 fingerprinting fee, and the agency wants to raise that to US$80. Fees are also paid for things such as work permits, replacing lost green cards and petitions to adopt orphans from other countries.

The proposed fee increases would not be final until after a public comment period.

Congressional Democrats last week warned in a letter to Gonzalez that they planned to review the agency's analyses behind any proposed immigration fee increases.

The letter was signed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and immigration subcommittee chairman, Sen. Edward Kennedy, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and immigration subcommittee chairwoman, Rep. Zoe Lofgren. All are Democrats.

Fee analysis every two years

Citizenship and Immigration Services covers its costs with application fees. The agency is required to do a fee analysis every two years to determine whether money raised from fees is covering costs. The agency last raised its fees in 2004, citing the cost of more intense background checks in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Immigrant advocates have long argued that the agency's costs cannot be absorbed by application fees. They want Congress to appropriate money to help pay costs.