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The price of becoming a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident is about to increase significantly.

Immigration application and petition fees have been gradually going up since 1985, but the rate increases — some more than 100 percent — proposed Wednesday by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials would mark the largest dollar increases in that time period.

An application for citizenship, including biometric encoding, would climb to $675 from $400 while an application to become a permanent resident would ascend to $985 from $395. The latter would be partially offset by the elimination of fees applicants have to pay while waiting for the green cards, officials said.

The new rates will most affect working-class immigrant families and discourage many others from filing, said Tucson immigration attorney Patricia Mejia.

"That's outrageous," Mejia said. "That's going to make it impossible for people to file for adjustment, most people struggle to even come up with current fees."

The increases are essential for the fee-based agency — which doesn't receive funding from Congress — to recover its costs and improve its service, said Emilio Gonzalez, director of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"This is a comprehensive cost of what it takes to keep this agency not only afloat, but moving forward," he said.

The new fee schedule has been posted on the Federal Register and after a 60-day public comment period and an additional 60-day period to execute the changes would likely be implemented about mid-June, Gonzalez said. Congress can weigh in but does not have authority to dictate the regulatory issue, he said.

Fee increases range from $65 more for a replacement employment authorization or temporary residence card to $2,375 more for certain fees paid by business entrepreneurs in the immigration process. Here are some examples of fee increases, including the biometric costs of getting fingerprints, photographs and signatures taken:

● An application for naturalization, or citizenship, would cost $675, a $275 increase from current fees, and nearly three times the $250 cost in 1998.

● An application to replace a permanent-resident "green card" would cost $370, a $110 increase from current fees and nearly three times as much as the $135 it cost in 1998.

● An application for employment authorization would cost $420, a $170 increase from current fees and more than triple the $125 cost in 1998.

The fee increase would make applying for citizenship in the United States more expensive than in any other country with a significant immigration flow, found a study by the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

A citizenship application fee costs $5 in Canada, $93 in Australia, $330 in Germany and $525 in the United Kingdom, the study found.

The proposal illustrates the mixed messages the country delivers to immigrants, said Jennifer Allen, director of Tucson-based Border Action Network, which works with immigrant communities: It wants them to become citizens, learn the language and adapt to the culture but then raise the prices so high that it becomes impossible for thousands.

"The fees as they existed before were an obstacle for many people," Allen said. "To continue to increase them is making citizenship more and more unattainable."

The agency established the new fee structure following an eight-month internal review of the costs of processing applications. A 2004 Government Accountability Office report found that current fees weren't covering costs and suggested the review.

It is the first comprehensive review of fees since 1998, when fees increased by 76 percent. The agency reviews its fees every two years.

The rates will cover the costs of processing refugees and asylum cases, who don't have to pay, and for those applicants who qualify for fee waivers or exemptions.

Applicants shouldn't have to pay these surcharges or anything beyond the costs associated with their case, said William Ramos, director of the Washington, D.C., office of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

"The way the agency is funded has a fundamental flaw," he said.

The agency should advocate for appropriations from Congress to remedy the problem.

But while Ramos' organization will work for that, it's not on the agenda of Gonzalez, who said Wednesday that he's never inquired about that.

"These are the rules of the game," Gonzalez said. "This is what we've inherited."

The agency is promising a 20 percent reduction in processing times by the end of fiscal year 2009 in return for the increased fees.

The agency has reduced its backlog from 3.8 million in 2004 to 9,482 cases at the end of fiscal year 2006, agency officials said. They are trying to process all applications within six months.

Processing times have improved for many of her clients, said Gloria Goldman, a Tucson immigration attorney since 1991 and a board member with the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

And, if the service improvements trickle down to offices in places such as Tucson, the increases will be worth it, she said.

"But, that's not generally what happens," Goldman said.

Citizenship and Immigration Services has two offices in Arizona, a main one in Phoenix and a field office in Tucson.

The agency would use the projected additional revenue of more than $1 billion to construct nine new offices, improving the layout of both new and existing offices. The money would also fund hiring nearly 1,500 employees to add to the 16,000 it has nationwide, spokeswoman Marie Sebrechts said.

Officials deny that the increases are meant to discourage people from pursuing permanent residency or U.S. citizenship. Gonzalez said he knows the fees will be tough on some immigrant families but said he must ensure that the agency with a $2 billion annual budget survives. "I need these fees to give these immigrant communities the agency they expect," he said.