Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Immigration tightening spurs rise in citizenship bids
LOS ANGELES — For nearly a decade, Yonis Bernal felt secure carrying a green card that allowed him to live and work legally in the United States. Becoming a citizen was not a priority.
He changed his mind after Donald Trump clinched the presidency.
“All this tough talk about immigrants got me thinking I still could be deported,” said Bernal, 49, a truck driver who left El Salvador in 1990 and has two teenage children. “You never know.”
Last week, he was among 3,542 immigrants who raised their right hands to take the oath at a naturalization ceremony inside the Los Angeles Convention Center, joining a growing wave of new citizens across the country.
As Trump campaigned on promises of a border wall and strict crackdowns on immigration, 2016 became the busiest year in a decade for naturalization applications. But this year, the number of applications is on track to surpass that of last year’s, while a perennial backlog continues to pile up. It is the first time in 20 years that applications have not slipped after a presidential election, according to analysis by the National Partnership for New Americans, an immigrant-rights coalition of 37 groups.
And with an stream of hard-line rhetoric and enforcement in the news, as well as a swell of citizenship drives and advocacy, there are no signs the trend is abating.
In a year when the government has bolstered enforcement, backed curbing legal immigration and begun to unwind a program that protects from deportation many people brought into the country illegally as youths, even a green card is not enough in the eyes of hundreds of thousands of immigrants applying for naturalization to protect themselves from removal and gain the right to vote.
“The draw of U.S. citizenship becomes more powerful when you have the political and policy environment that you have right now,” said Rosalind Gold, senior policy director at the NALEO Educational Fund, a national bipartisan Hispanic group.
About 8.8 million people are eligible to become American citizens, meaning they have been lawful permanent residents, or had a green card, for at least five years.
In the first three quarters of the 2017 fiscal year — from Oct. 1, 2016, through June 30, the latest period for which data are available — 783,330 people filed applications, compared with the 725,925 who filed during the same months a year earlier. The fiscal 2017 figure was on pace to surpass the 971,242 who applied in the 2016 fiscal year.
With the surge of applications, the processing backlog has ballooned. There were 708,638 pending applications at the end of June, a steady rise from 522,565 at the end of the 2016 fiscal year and 291,833 in 2010. The average wait time has doubled, to 8.6 months from four months a few years ago, with applicants in cities like Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas and Miami waiting a year or longer.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, which processes the applications, said it was enlisting officers to work overtime and was seeking to fill vacancies, noting “there is no quick fix” for the delays.
Not all permanent residents aspire to citizenship. Mexicans and Central Americans have lower naturalization rates than Southeast Asians and Russians, many of whom arrived as refugees and cannot return to their countries. The application fee (currently $725), the civics test and concern about losing certain privileges in a country of origin can deter naturalization.
But the current political climate is compelling many to look past any deterrents.
Permanent residency can be revoked, and green card holders can be deported if they are convicted on charges such as aggravated felonies, drug trafficking and crimes of “moral turpitude,” which can be broadly defined. Each time a permanent resident leaves the United States, re-entry is at the discretion of an immigration official.
Citizenship protects immigrants from deportation if they commit crimes, and it gives them access to federal benefits and jobs that are restricted to citizens.
Before the presidential election last year, several nonprofits began campaigns to encourage citizenship and guide immigrants through the application process, an effort that has not let up. Many cities, including Miami; Portland, Ore.; and Salt Lake City, have unveiled naturalization drives this year, and adult-education programs have added free citizenship courses for applicants.
The electoral implications of the rise in citizenship applications are unclear. In states like California, which leans heavily Democratic, tens of thousands of new citizens, and newly minted voters, will not change the status quo. In other states, like Florida, many new citizens are Cubans and South Americans who tend to support the Republican Party.
In Los Angeles, immigrants streamed into the hall for the naturalization ceremony, most of them dressed in formal or festive attire and accompanied by family and friends.
The largest number of new citizens hailed from Mexico, the Philippines and China, but those present had arrived from more than 120 countries.
“It’s the right time now” to become a citizen, said Mona Wattar, who arrived from Lebanon and obtained a green card 10 years ago. Ton Gao, a Chinese immigrant who donned a red polo shirt, blue training paints and white sneakers, said, “I did it for freedom.”
Several rows back sat Bernal, the truck driver from El Salvador, an American flag tucked in his pocket. Hand over heart, he joined his fellow new citizens for the Pledge of Allegiance to a huge flag that hung from the ceiling.
At the end of the ceremony, he collected his naturalization certificate and headed toward the exit to meet his wife, Eloisa, and children, Janie and Marcell, for a celebratory lunch.
But first he stopped at a voter registration table. “I got everything done,” Bernal said. “Now I’m going to vote.”