Cost of seeking citizenship rises
Higher fees will cut processing time for paperwork, agency says
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is hiking fees for immigration applications on July 30. The cost of applying for citizenship, including a biometrics fee, will rise from $400 to $675.
"Sooner or later I'm going to be a citizen, why not now?" Kaiser said. "This kind of pushed me."
Kaiser, a native of Japan, said there would be advantages to becoming a citizen of the same country as her husband and two children.
"I feel like if I live here for the rest of my life, I should be able to voice my opinion," she said, referring to the right to cast a vote.
Another advantage would be an American passport and the protection of the U.S. embassy when she travels overseas.
Kaiser recently attended a seminar hosted by the Multicultural Legal Center to find out if she could file her application before the fees go up.
"We're hoping people will be able to save themselves some money by filing before July 30," said Marlene Gonzalez, the center's executive director.
She said applicants should file by July 27 to pay the current fees.
Those are the I-90 to renew or replace a green card, the I-140 immigration petition for an alien worker, the I-485 to adjust status to permanent residency and the N-400 naturalization.
"We're doing very well at keeping that where it is now," said agency spokeswoman Maria Elena Garcia-Upson. "With the fee increase, the goal is to reduce the processing time by 20 percent. That's part of the fee increase."
Petitions for citizenship, for example, are expected to decrease from the current average six months to under five months. However, that doesn't include the 1 percent of applications that are delayed when FBI name checks take longer than six months, she said.
"They're trying to process those as fast as they can," she said. "We need to make sure we're bestowing a benefit to someone who does not want to cause us harm."
In advance of the hike, U.S. CIS has seen a 60 percent increase in applications for naturalizations, Garcia-Upson said.
In Utah alone, 2,359 people applied for naturalization in the first five months of 2007. During the same period last year, 1,510 people applied, according to the agency.
The fee increases will range from 22 percent for an orphan petition to more than 700 percent for those adjusting from temporary to permanent residence under a 1986 program.
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