New US citizens hit a 15-year high
Naturalization ceremonies make a comeback
On a windswept morning last spring, Mom Leveille slipped into a flowing red dress and high-heeled sandals and headed to a ballpark in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, her nerves jangled. A Cambodian refugee, Leveille had applied for US citizenship nearly two years earlier, and, finally, the moment was nigh when she would take a permanent oath of allegiance to the country where her family had found safe haven.
In the stands of Maimonides Park, she joined 250 people from 65 countries who were sworn in by judges wearing their formal black robes. Like Leveille, 39, many of the new Americans had waited more than a year to be invited for the naturalization ceremony since first submitting their applications.
She wiped away tears that day as she rose to deliver a speech about the security, the electoral voice, and the responsibility that came with becoming a citizen. “It was a very, very long process, and it was very emotional,” she said.
Across the country, naturalization ceremonies are making a comeback, in parks, sports arenas, and courthouses, after a long hiatus caused by COVID19 lockdowns that suspended public gatherings, shuttered immigration offices, and put thousands of citizenship applications on hold.
Nearly 1 million immigrants became citizens in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the most in almost 15 years and the third-highest number ever, according to a recent Pew Research analysis, demonstrating the increasing impact of immigration on who lives and works in the United States — and who votes.
“People have incentives to become citizens,” said Jeffrey S. Passel, a senior demographer at Pew Research, who co-wrote the study based on government data. “The numbers have not only rebounded. They are reaching levels we have rarely seen in our history.”
The total number of people seeking to become citizens is not reflected in the year-end data and is actually much higher because of the pileup of applications. Some 670,000 naturalizations are still pending.
The Biden administration has taken several steps to streamline the process, such as simplifying forms and redirecting interviewees from cities whose immigration offices are stretched to those that have capacity. That has helped reduce the backlog of pending applications from more than 1 million in December 2020.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that handles the applications, also announced recently that it would soon conduct a trial of a redesigned naturalization test intended to be more fair and consistent. For the oral assessment, candidates will be asked to describe three photographs of everyday activities, the weather, or food. The goal is to test ordinary use of English, rather than to rely on complex questions whose answers may differ considerably based on immigrants’ personal histories and countries of origin. (Applicants will still be asked separately to respond in English to security questions as part of the review.)
“It is good for the nation for people to join it in the fullest way that they can,” said Ur M. Jaddou, the director of USCIS. “That has been a priority since the beginning of this administration.”
The Biden administration initiatives are a reversal from those of the Trump administration, which increased scrutiny of applications and made the citizenship test more cumbersome and challenging as part of its agenda to curb legal immigration.
But that administration’s immigration posture backfired, awakening many longtime legal residents to the fact that a green card does not shield them from deportation. And many felt compelled to seek citizenship in order to cast a ballot.
Immigrants who demonstrate continuous permanent lawful residence in the United States for at least five years, or three years if married to a US citizen, are eligible to apply for citizenship. They must pass background checks, submit a bevy of supporting documents, and pass civics and English tests during an interview.
The 970,000 naturalizations in the 2022 fiscal year were the most since the 2008 fiscal year, when 1.05 million immigrants became citizens.