Big increases in citizenship, other immigration fees planned

By Suzanne Gamboa

ASSOCIATED PRESS

6:45 a.m. January 31, 2007

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is proposing to nearly double the cost of becoming an U.S. citizen and drastically raise the cost of becoming a legal permanent resident.

Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, announced Wednesday it wants to raise the application fee for citizenship from $330 to $595 and the fee for becoming a legal permanent resident from $180 to $1,370.

“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 modernization efforts,” said Emilio Gonzalez, CIS director.