TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- It's taking the government too long to speed up the process for immigrants to become U.S. citizens.

That's the assessment of the Arizona director of a national nonprofit agency that's calling on the federal government to hire more workers to speed up the process for U.S. citizenship while reducing the backlog of immigrants waiting to become citizens.

"Less bureaucracy, more democracy," said Monica Sandschafer of Phoenix, the state director of the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

ACORN members have been speaking out around the country about their concern that the backlog of applications will keep some people from being able to vote in the November presidential election.

Sandschafer said the higher fees required for naturalization processing were supposed to speed the process for applicants but they have not.

An aide to Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, D-Tucson, is also concerned about the issue.

The fee increase that families endured was to improve customer service and ensure applications were processed in a timely manner, said Sami Y. Hamed.

Grijalva has been assured by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that 3,200 of the 4,500 naturalization applications awaiting processing in the service's Tucson office that were filed last summer should be completed by August, Hamed said.

The immigration service said up to 1,500 new employees are being hired and the agency was working to improve processing applications for citizenship.

In Tucson, some applicants will be given appointments with the local office on Saturdays and in the evenings to help reduce the backlog.

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Information from: Tucson Citizen, http://www.tucsoncitizen.com

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