Local immigrant advocates are decrying a Bush administration proposal to increase fees for those seeking to become U.S. citizens, saying it places an unfair burden on families here.

The plan, announced in Washington last month by Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Emilio Gonzalez, proposes increasing the fee to apply for U.S. citizenship from $330 to $595. Other fees related to the naturalization and immigration process also are on the rise. The average increase in the various fees is about 66 percent.

Hawai'i is an entry point for many immigrants who arrive from Asia and the Pacific. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics show 4,663 people were naturalized in fiscal year 2005.

Tin Myaing Thein, executive director of the Pacific Gateway Center, which offers help on citizenship issues among the many services it provides to immigrants, said her staff is advising its clients that the proposed fee hikes could have dire consequences for them.

"If they are thinking about becoming a citizen or changing their status, they need to make decisions quickly," Thein said. "Our clientele is low income, so it affects them even more. If it's a single person, maybe they can shoulder the burden but if it's a family, then it's really a hardship because it adds up."

Even under the existing fee schedule, Thein said, she knows of one family that is choosing to have the husband apply for citizenship first — without his wife — for financial reasons.

Honolulu immigration attorney John Robert Egan said immigrant services have been underfunded and neglected for years. Then came Sept. 11 and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, which came with a large cost.

Gonzalez's agency was formed as part of the Department of Homeland Security when it was created in March 2003. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services took over most of the functions of the now-defunct Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services.

"So they want to cover the shortfall from the immigrants themselves," Egan said. "The question this poses is who is responsible for funding the security of the American homeland? Immigrants? Or Congress, through a rational and ongoing appropriations process?"

Pat McManaman, executive director of Na Loio, the Immigrant Rights and Public Interest Legal Center, echoed Egan's objections.

"Congress just simply needs to appropriate more funds in this area," McManaman said. Na Loio works with a number of clients who are in poverty and many won't be able to afford the higher fees, she said.

"The magnitude of the fee raises they're talking about are going to have an impact on the Asian community in Hawai'i and the Pacific Islander community in Hawai'i," McManaman said. She estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 immigrants become naturalized U.S. citizens in Hawai'i annually, most of them from the Asia-Pacific region.

"There's going to be a substantial barrier for immigrants who already are working multiple jobs supporting their families here in the U.S.," she said. "Our clients are already struggling. I can't tell you how much a $400 fee (the existing $330 naturalization fee plus a $70 fingerprinting fee) is a barrier to them."

The administrative rule process requires a 60-day public review period but no congressional approval of the fee increases.

The fees were last increased in October 2005 but only to reflect an adjustment in inflation. Gonzalez said the fee increases are necessary to improve customer service and strengthen the security of the immigration system.

"As a fee-based agency, we must be able to recover the costs 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," Gonzalez said.

One goal is to decrease processing time for naturalization applications by 20 percent by the end of 2009, he said.

KahBo Dye-Chiew, Hawai'i chapter chairwoman for the American Immigrant Lawyers Association, said the math doesn't add up if fees are going up by 66 percent and processing time is to be reduced by 20 percent.

Dye-Chiew said there are ways for the agency to improve efficiency through procedural and administrative changes.

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.