Surge of US Citizenship Applications as Immigration toughens

There has been a surge of US Citizenship Applications even as immigration toughens and protectionist policies that are being supported by the Trump administration. 2016 had become the busiest year for the decade for US Citizenship Applications. The reason was Trump’s campaign focused on promises of curbing immigrants, as quoted by the NY Times.

However, in 2017 the number of US Citizenship Applications is on the way to surpass the numbers for 2016. The perennial backlog of applications continues to accumulate. This is for the first time in last 20 years that applications have not decreased after an election for the US President. The analysis was revealed by an immigrant rights coalition of 37 groups the National Partnership for New Americans.

Amidst policies aimed at curbing immigration and bolstered enforcement even a US PR visa is inadequate in the eyes of thousands of immigrants. They are thus applying for naturalization to safeguard from deportation and obtain voting rights. Trump also recently announced the abolishing of DACA immigrant program with a 6 months delay. It has protected undocumented youth in the US from deportation.

For these several thousands of immigrants, the draw of citizenship is an empowerment. It is especially more so in the current political situation and policy direction. Almost 8.8 million immigrants are qualified to become citizens of the US.

783,330 people filed applications for US citizenship in the first three quarters of 2017 fiscal year. This was from 1 October 2016 till 30 June 2017. For the same period in the fiscal year 2016, 725, 925 applications were filed. The pace of current year’s applications is on the way to surpass the applications filed in 2016 fiscal year – 971, 242.

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