Immigration authorities are approving citizenship applications at the fastest pace in a decade.
The Biden administration claims the wave of new citizens is a result of efforts to tackle to the backlog that piled up during the previous administration, which then ballooned amid the pandemic.
The average processing time for a citizenship application was cut in half from a record high of 11.5 months in 2021 to 4.9 months this fiscal year, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data through July 31. A decade ago in 2014, it also took 4.9 months on average to process a citizenship application.
In the wake of the pandemic in 2020, the backlog of citizenship applications ballooned to nearly 943,000, according to a Boundless report.
The speedier processing is the result of an effort by the Biden administration to cut through the backlog.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began prioritizing naturalization applications, accepting online applications and increasing hiring. The agency also rolled back Trump-era policies that tightened eligibility criteria for fee waivers, making it easier for low-income immigrants to apply for free, and expanded public engagement about the naturalization process to reduce the flood of applications around election years. (Los Angeles Times)
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security insisted the effort is not “based on electoral politics or upcoming elections,” the LA Times reports. But not everyone is buying it.
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Xiao Wang, co-founder of Boundless, a company that assists those attempting to navigate the immigration system, told the LA Times the uptick in approving applications is “not part of some master conspiracy to flood the country with new Democratic voters,” since “there’s a lot of statistics that show many immigrants share more in common with Republican values.”
But a quote from Wang in The New York Times last month caught conservatives’ attention.
“The surge in naturalization efficiency isn’t just about clearing backlogs; it’s potentially reshaping the electorate, merely months before a pivotal election,” he said. “Every citizenship application could be a vote that decides Senate seats or even the presidency.”
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