DURHAM - The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will open a new field office today near Research Triangle Park, making it more convenient for residents of Eastern North Carolina who are trying to become citizens or be declared permanent residents.

Until now, applicants have had to travel to Charlotte at least twice: once for fingerprinting and again for an interview with an immigration agent.

"It's been horrible," said Ann Robertson, a Raleigh lawyer and secretary of the Carolinas Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "For some of my clients in northeastern North Carolina, it takes seven hours to drive to Charlotte."

Robertson said the citizenship office was placed in Charlotte to serve both North Carolina and South Carolina, when neither state had many immigrants.

Ana Santiago, spokeswoman for the agency in the Southeast, said North Carolina's immigrant population increased 274 percent during the 1990s, with Latinos accounting for 27 percent of the state's growth. North Carolina also has fast-growing Indian and Vietnamese populations, Santiago said. The state has more than 430,000 foreign-born residents, she said.

To celebrate the opening of the office, at 301 Roycroft Drive in Durham, the agency will hold a naturalization ceremony for 63 U.S. military service members from North Carolina.

Jonathan Scharfen, the agency's acting director, will preside over the ceremony, one of dozens that have taken place since a federal law went into effect in 2004 expediting the process that turns legal immigrants serving in the military into U.S. citizens.

Though many Americans take citizenship for granted, Sgt. 1st Class Dean Welch, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, said that for immigrant soldiers, it's an important symbol.

"They're already serving the United States of America as soldiers, and this is just the commitment they have made that takes it a step further.

"We're lucky," Welch said. "We were born in the U.S. We understand the benefits of being citizens. They've had to do a little more to get there, but they're just as proud to be American citizens as we are."