The federal government is processing citizenship requests at the fastest clip in a decade, the New York Times reported.
The citizenship requests have been moving rapidly after a backlog developed during the Trump administration and the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Times.
The new citizens will be eligible to vote in this fall's presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, but the Times said it is unknown how many new voters live in battleground states.
Several of the states where Kamala Harris or Donald Trump must win have large and growing numbers of voting-age naturalized citizens, including Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, the Times reported.
Lawful permanent residents, with green cards, are eligible to become naturalized citizens after five years or have been married to a U.S. citizen for at least three years. People with green cards have the same rights as citizens, except for voting in federal elections.
New citizens told the Times voting in the presidential election was one of their motivations to becoming citizens.
"I'm so glad that the process moved quickly," Gladis Brown, who emigrated from Honduras in 2018 and recently took the oath to become a citizen, told the Times. "People like me want to vote in the election."
Xiao Wang, the chief executive of Boundless, a company that assists immigrants with the application process, told the Times speeding up citizen requests could reshape the electorate months before election.
"Every citizenship application could be a vote that decides Senate seats or even the presidency," Wang said.
It takes about five months to process a citizen application process, on par with the speed in 2013 and 2014. About 3.3 million immigrants have become citizens during President Joe Biden's time in office, the Times reported.
It took about 11½ months to process applications in 2021, the Times said. Early in his presidency, Biden signed an executive order to reduce the processing times for citizenship
The Biden administration began deploying new technology and additional staff in 2022 to reduce the pending caseload of citizenship applications, according to the Times. The Biden administration also shortened the application from 14 pages, down from 20, and made it easier for low-income people to qualify for a discount.
Overall, naturalized citizens have a lower registration rate than native-born Americans, the Times said, though the it cited a survey that said 81.4% of naturalized citizens said they would "definitely" vote in the 2024 election.
The survey was conducted by U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego, with the National Partnership for New Americans.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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