NORTH COUNTY -- The cost of becoming a U.S. citizen would double under a proposal by the federal government that is being criticized by local immigrant advocates.

Officials for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Wednesday that they want to increase application fees for U.S. citizenship as well as fees for permanent residency applications and some nonimmigrant visas.

The fee would rise from $330 to about $670, including a $70 or $80 fee for digital photos and fingerprints, a spokeswoman for the federal agency's office in Laguna Niguel said Thursday.

The combined fees for permanent residency applications would increase from $800 to $905, plus the photo fee. On average, the fees for all applications, including temporary nonresident visas, would increase about 66 percent, according to agency officials.

Citizenship and immigration annually processes more than 4 million applications, agency spokeswoman Marie Therese Sebrechts said Thursday.

The proposal begins a regulatory process in which the agency announces its intention to change the regulations. After a 60-day public comment period, the federal agency analyzes those comments before drafting a final rule.

About 700,000 people became naturalized U.S. citizens in fiscal year 2006, Sebrechts said. During the same period, about 1.1 million people received a green card for permanent residency, while about 2.5 million nonimmigrants, not including tourists, received temporary visas.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the agency has incurred increased costs for additional security and background checks, Sebrechts said.

The current fees are not enough to pay for processing the applications, Sebrechts said. Because the agency relies mostly on application fees, the hikes set to take effect in June are essential, she said.

Immigrant advocates and immigration attorneys question the increases, however.

"This should be addressed through budget allocations rather than a significant hike in fees," said Gerardo Gonzalez, a former director of the Cal State San Marcos National Latino Research Center. "We should be facilitating things, because we want to see people participate in our democracy."

Rancho Bernardo-based immigration attorney Nora Milner said that as recently as 1994, the processing fee for citizenship papers was $95. She asserted the agency is notoriously inefficient, and that while fees have increased dramatically during the last 12 years, the agency's efficiency has not.

Sebrechts conceded that up until recently, the immigration agency lacked the resources to clear a backlog of applications from people who had been waiting as long as two years. But in 2002, Congress appropriated $460 million to eliminate the backlog by 2006 and the waiting time for most people was reduced to about six months, Sebrechts said.

While a $300 or $400 increase might not seem like that much to some people, she said the higher fees may be a huge sacrifice for poor families. As many as four or five families will sometimes pool their money, with each family depositing $50 or so a month, she said. When a family member needs to pay an immigration fee, the family can draw money from the account with the understanding that they will pay it back later, Milner said.

"That is how these people are able to pay these exorbitant fees," Milner said. "All this cost is being put on the back of the immigrant user. They are paying for the inefficiency of the system."

The American Immigration Lawyers Association has protested the fee increase. On Thursday, a Beverly Hills-based attorney and spokesman for the group said the fee hike is unconscionable in light of the agency's track record.

"In immigration, you pay a fee and your money goes into the abyss," said the attorney, Eli Kantor. "They don't deliver a service -- they just take your money and say, 'Good luck.' "

Poor immigrants shouldn't have to pay for "an antiquated system and the shortcomings of the past 20 years," he added.

Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426, or wbennett@nctimes.com.