The processes of migrants to obtain United States
citizenship
, known as naturalization, increased again after the drop suffered at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study published this Thursday by the Pew Research Center.
During fiscal year 2022 (from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022),
more than 900,000 migrants became US citizens,
according to estimates based on data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Census for the first three quarters of that year.
That annual projection would be
the third-highest
ever recorded and the highest since 2008, when more than a million people naturalized, the research center reports.
Migrants during a naturalization ceremony on November 19 at the Gettysburg CemeteryAndrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images
Naturalizations rebounded after the pandemic in migrants of almost all nationalities: 8% for
Mexicans
(who lead with 119,000), 27% for
Indians
(with 61,000), or 62% for
Cubans
(48,000), for example.
They fell for
Chinese
, however, 20% (with 28,000);
and 3% for
Colombians
(18,000).
This rebound also coincides with others in immigration processes after the closure of federal offices and other restrictions, including the
border
, due to the pandemic;
In the fiscal year of 2020, 6,140,000 naturalizations were registered, the lowest number since 2003. They have also grown since then, for example, the granting of residence permits (known as
green cards
) or visas for foreign students.
As a general rule, immigrants with permanent residence can become citizens if they are over 18 years old and have been in the country for at least five years with a
green card
, or three if they are married to a US person.
In addition, they must have no criminal record and pass a language and knowledge test of the country.
Among the rights they obtain upon naturalization are voting, serving on juries, obtaining certain government jobs, or
sponsoring family members
to obtain their
green card
.
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It is, however, a
voluntary process
: a migrant can live his whole life in the United States with his
green card
without having to naturalize.
Prior to the pandemic, there was a spike in petitions to obtain citizenship just before and after the November 2020 elections, probably motivated by fears that the immigration policies of former President
Donald Trump
.
These requests could not have affected the electoral result in any way, since the process is not immediate and, in fact, can take months due to bureaucratic delays.
As of June 2022, there were some 673,000 naturalization petitions
pending
, a figure well above the period between 2012 and 2016 (when Democrat Barack Obama was in office) but below the peak of December 2020, with more than a million delayed.
Thus, the average time to complete the process has gone from 9.1 months in fiscal year 2020 to 10.5 months in fiscal year 2022.
The
total number of naturalized citizens
in the United States has almost tripled in any case between 1995 and 2019, from 7.6 million to 22.1 million, according to the research center.
The number of permanent residents has not varied much in that period, going from 11.2 million to 12.4 million.