There are nearly 9 million immigrants in the United States who are eligible for U.S. citizenship, but fewer than 1 million typically apply in any given year.

Many barriers to citizenship are more or less fixed: given high application fees and the required civics and English tests, it’s simply less costly and time-intensive up-front for most people to renew their green card every 10 years than to go through the naturalization process.

Naturalization—the process by which an immigrant becomes a U.S. citizen—brings considerable economic benefits at the individual, regional, and national levels. Naturalized immigrants earn 8-11% more in annual income than non-naturalized immigrants (controlling for variables such as skills, education, and fluency in English), suggesting that naturalization leads to better-paying jobs by signaling to employers that a given immigrant has strong English language skills and a long-term commitment to live and work in the United States.

One study of 21 U.S. cities found that if all eligible immigrant residents were to naturalize, their aggregate income would increase by $5.7 billion, yielding an increase in homeownership by over 45,000 people and an increase in tax revenue of $2 billion. Nationally, if half of the eligible immigrant population of the United States naturalized, the increased earnings and demand could boost GDP by $37-52 billion per year.

But barriers to becoming a U.S. citizen have gotten worse over time, and are not evenly distributed across the country.

The processing time for a citizenship application has surged over the past 2 years to over 10 months—double the processing time between 2012 and 2016

Becoming a U.S. citizen is much harder in some places than others.

• The top 3 best overall metro areas for immigrants to become U.S. citizens are Cleveland, Ohio; Riverside, California; and Louisville, Kentucky.
• The worst 3 metro areas for immigrants to become U.S. citizens are all in Texas: Austin, Houston, and Dallas.
• The top 3 metro areas with the highest naturalization rate of eligible immigrants are Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• The worst 3 metro areas with the lowest naturalization rate are Fresno, California; Phoenix, Arizona; and Dallas, Texas.

Backlogs

Growing backlogs have direct and negative consequences for immigrants seeking to become U.S. citizens: They have to wait longer for their applications to be processed by the government.

Read more about the report here