The Biden administration’s policies addressing the detrimental effects that the pandemic and anti-immigrant agenda of the Trump administration had on immigration paperwork processing appear to be paying significant dividends. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has been processing naturalization paperwork for eligible immigrants at the fastest rate in a decade, The New York Times reports:
At under five months, application processing speed is now on a par with 2013 and 2014. About 3.3 million immigrants have become citizens during President Biden’s time in office, with less than two months to go before the close of the 2024 fiscal year.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services took 4.9 months, on average, to process naturalization applications in the first nine months of the current fiscal year, compared with 11.5 months in fiscal 2021.
After taking office in 2021, Mr. Biden issued an executive order that sought to dial back his predecessor’s hard-line immigration agenda and “restore faith” in the legal immigration system. Among other steps, the order called for action to “substantially reduce current naturalization processing times” with the goal of strengthening integration of new Americans.
USCIS halted all in-person services at the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, leaving countless eligible immigrants who were waiting for first-time biometric appointments, interviews and naturalization ceremonies in the lurch. “This delayed the ability of tens of thousands of immigrants to become U.S. citizens,” the American Immigration Council (AIC) said in 2020. But while officials had the authority to conduct widespread virtual ceremonies so that prospective citizens could complete the naturalization process, the Trump administration resisted this call. Remember that while the Trump administration placed L. Francis Cissna at the helm, it was white nationalist aide Stephen Miller who really ran the immigration show.
“To be clear, the law is not as stringent as USCIS suggests and there is legal room for USCIS to make appropriate accommodations for remote oath ceremonies,” Ur Jaddou, then-director of DHS Watch, a project of America’s Voice, said at the time. “But it takes will and interest to do so.”
Jaddou is now the Biden administration’s Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and leading the organization’s effort to overcome the damage left by Trump and his anti-immigrant operatives.
However, shutdowns weren’t solely to blame for delays and logjams. Even before the pandemic, the Trump administration was causing and exacerbating backlogs by lending staff to help ICE with the agency’s deportations, conducting unnecessary “extreme vetting,” and announcing intentions to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in fees paid by USCIS customers for timely processing to ICE. USCIS also removed “nation of immigrants” from its mission statement and threatened the agency overall by bringing it to the brink of having to furlough roughly two-thirds of its workforce.
“None of this needs to happen or should be blamed on the pandemic,” Jaddou said in 2020. “This financial crisis at USCIS is the direct result of three and a half years of xenophobic Trump administration immigration policy that drove the agency into the ground and left it woefully unprepared to stay afloat during this pandemic.”
Proactive policy moves by the Biden administration have included implementing a reduced application fee that benefits the vast majority of eligible immigrants, providing funding to organizations that offer naturalization application services, and implementing a “whole of government” naturalization push. Thanks in part to these efforts and the critical work of advocacy groups, the 2022 fiscal year saw the highest naturalization rate in more than a decade, welcoming 974,000 new Americans. In fiscal year 2023, the nation welcomed 878,500 new Americans. As of May, 589,400 new Americans have been welcomed. The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) announced at the time that AAPI individuals have made up the largest group of new Americans since the last presidential election. From NPNA:
- New American Voters are ethnically and racially diverse. Among the top five countries of origin for people naturalizing since November 2020, Mexico was the lead country, with 13.1% of all naturalizations, followed by India (6.8%), the Philippines (5.3%), Cuba (4.3%), and the Dominican Republic (3.8%).
- New American Voters are young to middle-aged. Nearly six in ten people that have naturalized since November 2020 are under the age of 45, with 32% aged 18-34.
- New American Voters are women. Of newly naturalized Americans since November 2020, 55% – or nearly 2 million – are female.
“And among the total 3.5 million people nationwide that have naturalized since November 2020, we see a powerful emerging voting bloc that is young, ethnically diverse, and predominantly women,” said Nicole Melaku, NPNA executive director. Among the new Americans profiled in The New York Times report is Gladis Brown, an immigrant originally from Honduras and now a U.S. citizen who calls Georgia home.
“‘I’m so glad that the process moved quickly,’ said Ms. Brown, who was one of the 31 immigrants being sworn in. ‘People like me want to vote in the election.’ After the ceremony, Ms. Brown celebrated with cake and punch from a local women’s volunteer group — and by completing a voter-registration form provided by a representative of the League of Women Voters.”
