Thursday, November 14, 2024

US citizenship wait time is 10 months

US citizenship waiting times for green card holders have doubled and waiting time is 10 months or more. This yet, only 41% of Americans have passports.

The average wait time on a U.S. citizenship application was about five months in 2014. Today, the average time a green card holder will wait for their citizenship application to be processed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is 10 months.

With the increased wait time, the backlog of pending applications has also grown considerably. In September of 2013, a little over 300,000 citizenship applications were pending. Now more than 750,000 applications are awaiting processing.

This means that permanent residents are waiting longer than in years passed. For those who live in areas where many permanent residents are applying, the wait time can reach up to 17 months.

Reasons for long wait times

Few reasons why the agency’s wait time and backlog has risen so significantly.

  • Changes under both the Obama and Trump administration have created an application process that is lengthy, expensive, and in many ways difficult for non-native English speakers. This began under President Obama, when in 2014 he instructed USCIS to make significant changes to the application form. It shot up from a 10-page document to 21 pages.
  • Much of this increased length was due to new questions regarding applicants’ links to terrorist groups, genocide, and military training, among other topics. These questions were added despite the fact very few naturalized citizens come from countries with terrorist ties.
  • The new test also included more difficult questions on U.S. history and civics.
  • These types of questions in the new form, along with its use of more technical terms, left advocates afraid non-English speakers may be discouraged from applying for citizenship.
  • The average wait time and backlog have also increased under President Trump.

 

According to a report from the National Partnership for New Americans, there has been a 35 percent increase in the backlog from July 2017 to July 2018. There has been a 77 percent increase since July 2016.

The report also found that USCIS has decreased its processing rate and increased the number of denials under the current administration, and that it has done so in a way that is “arbitrary and lacks geographic uniformity.” For example, the processing rate for some states is much longer than others. In Florida, the time a person waits for an application has decreased by 5 percent. Over the same time frame, Alabama’s backlog increased by 213 percent.

Denaturalizations

The US government is expanding its operations by creating a task force to revoke citizenship obtained through fraud

In fact, instead of addressing the growing backlog, USCIS is actually spending resources looking through thousands of old citizenship applications for any potential signs of fraud. If it finds fraud in an application, the agency plans to rescind citizenship.

Naturalization applications

As of 2019 There are over 740,000  naturalization applications pending in the US, which is over 3 times the applications received . Houston and Dallas (TX) has the most number of pending applications.

Applications Received Approved Denied Pending Refusal rate
Houston HOU 7580 3179 408 42028 5.38%
Dallas DAL 6684 4391 563 37870 8.42%
New York NYC 7326 5232 1079 30738 14.73%
San Francisco SFR 7592 6371 262 27380 3.45%
Chicago CHI 7645 5935 478 27087 6.25%
Newark NEW 8822 7483 1086 26030 12.31%
Queens QNS 6153 6231 833 25403 13.54%
Brooklyn BNY 5748 3574 570 24798 9.92%
Atlanta ATL 5550 4167 313 20872 5.64%
Baltimore BAL 5303 2867 250 20348 4.71%
Seattle SEA 4750 2187 195 18464 4.11%
Miami MIA 3191 1512 426 17935 13.35%
Los Angeles County LAC 4696 3982 747 17513 15.91%
Philadelphia PHI 5082 4304 540 17226 10.63%
St. Paul SPM 3475 2166 276 16637 7.94%
Los Angeles LOS 4566 4285 422 16553 9.24%
Washington WAS 5154 3709 425 16463 8.25%
Santa Ana SAA 4111 2889 809 14106 19.68%
Oakland Park OKL 3180 2256 520 13972 16.35%
San Fernando Valley SFV 3831 3079 455 13391 11.88%
Phoenix PHO 2934 1966 286 13091 9.75%
Kendall KND 3417 2767 258 12459 7.55%
San Jose SNJ 4226 3560 304 11236 7.19%
Orlando ORL 3014 3014 461 10760 15.30%
San Antonio SNA 3697 2760 373 10610 10.09%
San Diego SND 4009 3916 399 10575 9.95%
Sacramento SAC 3698 3645 345 10484 9.33%
Long Island LNY 2879 3588 625 10412 21.71%
Denver DEN 2499 1724 349 10345 13.97%
Boston BOS 4656 3927 369 10285 7.93%
Detroit DET 4326 3657 617 9841 14.26%
Memphis MEM 2058 1406 154 8499 7.48%
San Bernardino SBD 4528 4293 666 8396 14.71%
Hialeah HIA 3433 3229 671 8234 19.55%
Las Vegas LVG 2173 1588 154 8203 7.09%
Tampa TAM 3151 3516 467 8030 14.82%
Hartford HAR 2692 2210 253 7897 9.40%
Fresno FRE 2579 3023 299 7047 11.59%
El Paso ELP 1360 1202 178 6652 13.09%
West Palm Beach WPB 2288 2912 535 6361 23.38%
Fort Meyers OFM 1184 871 114 5989 9.63%
Salt Lake City SLC 1389 840 81 5530 5.83%
Montgomery MGA 983 101 46 5364 4.68%
Charlotte CLT 2206 1671 285 5342 12.92%
Harlingen HLG 776 841 136 5245 17.53%
Mount Laurel MTL 2172 2205 212 4998 9.76%
Portland POO 2317 2560 112 4850 4.83%
Norfolk NOR 1471 799 105 4409 7.14%
Lawrence LAW 2102 1724 357 4398 16.98%
Milwaukee MIL 1186 1066 73 4121 6.16%
New Orleans NOL 981 725 83 4032 8.46%
Raleigh RAL 1982 1677 84 4005 4.24%
Des Moines DSM 970 1114 78 3658 8.04%
Indianapolis INP 1827 1467 156 3315 8.54%
Buffalo BUF 1610 1189 185 3279 11.49%
Jacksonville JAC 1377 1429 145 3191 10.53%
Columbus CLM 1617 1437 102 3191 6.31%
Honolulu HHW 1018 682 87 2956 8.55%
Omaha OMA 1041 507 141 2497 13.54%
Louisville LOU 1162 973 160 2320 13.77%
Kansas City KAN 1282 1070 115 2300 8.97%
Oklahoma City OKC 1043 1107 115 2296 11.03%
St. Louis STL 890 794 44 2038 4.94%
Cleveland CLE 1216 1093 75 1876 6.17%
Pittsburgh PIT 809 472 59 1755 7.29%
Providence PRO 839 560 135 1753 16.09%
Tucson TUC 671 833 83 1496 12.37%
Cincinnati CIN 933 926 89 1456 9.54%
San Juan SAJ 393 481 115 1426 29.26%
Wichita WIC 436 243 46 1333 10.55%
Albany ALB 582 489 70 1242 12.03%
Charleston CHL 683 690 90 1095 13.18%
Reno REN 324 273 37 993 11.42%
Fort Smith FSA 416 512 25 975 6.01%
Anchorage ANC 288 93 25 936 8.68%
Greer GRR 528 336 36 915 6.82%
Boise BOI 503 493 41 872 8.15%
Albuquerque ABQ 509 610 53 830 10.41%
Imperial IMP 248 233 58 825 23.39%
Yakima YAK 526 675 25 722 4.75%
Manchester MAN 471 422 35 662 7.43%
Spokane SPO 292 205 22 590 7.53%
Portland POM 277 171 D 567
Agana AGA 225 257 19 436 8.44%
Charlotte Amalie CHA 88 52 D 388
St. Albans STA 207 203 12 347 5.80%
Christiansted CHR 20 16 169
Helena HEL 96 95 D 160
218222 747374

 

 

Source/Credit: immigrationimpact.com

Prabhu Balakrishnan
Prabhu Balakrishnan
Founder of Citizenship by Investment News. Chief Editor with over 15 years experience in PR and News publishing. He Loves writing about citizenship, residency and wealth migration. CIP Journal is a Leading publication founded in 2017 bringing latest news from CBI/RBI market.

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