11/14/2006 8:43 am - A plan to sharply increase fees charged to immigrants when they apply to become citizens is setting off anger and opposition among immigrant advocates.

A plan to sharply increase fees charged to immigrants when they apply to become citizens is setting off anger and opposition among immigrant advocates.

A spokesman for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services said the increase, which may double the current citizenship application fee of $400, is necessary to cover the costs of processing applications since Sept. 11, 2001, at the agency, which is funded by user fees.

But immigrant advocates and members of Congress have decried the proposed increases, saying the higher costs will put citizenship beyond the reach of some poorer immigrants.

"Making it more difficult for immigrants to become citizens doesn't make sense," said Thomas Keown , spokesman for Boston's Irish Immigration Center. "When we have people who are proud to become Americans . . . we should be excited and eager to help them, not price them out of the market."

Though immigrant advocates said they expect the fee increases next year, Shawn Saucier , a spokesman for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services, said that they are being reviewed and that there is no timeline for them to take effect.

The review is necessary, he said, because his department, unlike other immigration departments, is required by Congress to fully fund itself through user fees. And since 2003, when the Immigration and Naturalization Service was replaced by the Department of Homeland Security, Citizenship and Immigration Services has been a stand-alone operation.

Added to that restructuring are higher costs of closely scrutinizing applicants since the 2001 terrorist attacks, training adjudicators, and streamlining the department to reduce backlogs, he said.

"We're as concerned as everybody about the costs going up," he said. "We don't want citizenship to be priced beyond people's reach, but we do need to do what Congress asks us to do, which is to recoup the costs of doing business."

But immigrant advocates say there is more at work than a federal department recouping costs. They say an increase from $400 to $600 or $800 is unreasonable, far outstripping inflation, and that even if the department's costs have increased, it is unfair to require immigrants to shoulder that burden.

Asking immigrants who have followed all the rules and are seeking to become full members of US society to bear the entire cost is at odds with the view that has prevailed in Washington during this year's fractious national debate over immigration, that the interests of legal immigrants should be favored over those who enter the country illegally, they say.

"This sends the signal that the federal government does not value citizenship, and that it does not value [legal]immigration," said Fred Tsao , policy director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrants and Refugee Rights.

In late October, three US s enators and 23 US representatives sent letters to Emilio Gonzalez , director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, opposing the fee increase and other changes they said would make the application process more difficult.

"A fee increase for naturalization would raise an irresponsible new barrier for legal immigrants hoping to become part of the American Dream," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who signed one of the letters.

"Naturalization is a uniquely powerful moment when new citizens embrace our nation and our nation embraces them, and it's wrong to price it out of reach for qualified immigrants."