In fiscal year 2019, 8.34 lakh immigrants were given American citizenship, an eleven-year high showing a rise of 9.5 per cent over the previous year.
In a press release, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has added that 5.77 lakh individuals were granted lawful permanent residence in the form of green cards in comparison to fiscal year 2018, showing a sharp fall of 47.4 per cent.
At 52,1497, India-born individuals were the second largest group to be granted US citizenship in fiscal year 2018, according to another report released by the US Department of Homeland Security which provides country of birth data. They constituted 6.9 per cent of the total number of new citizens and reflected a rise of 2.7 per cent over the previous year.
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The largest group continued to be from Mexico just over 1.3 lakh- with 39,600 Chinese at third spot.
In a purpoted attempt to end criticism over the slowdown in processing, the USCIS release pointed out that the number of applications pending for green cards and citizenship had come down by 14 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively.
Only green card holders can opt for naturalisation (the process which confers US citizenship upon foreign nationals); they can do so after being a permanent resident for five years. For spouses of US citizens, the period is reduced to three years.
Immigrant experts view the rise in citizenship owing to two key factors, uncertainty on the immigration policy front, which even renders green card holders vulnerable, and the desire to vote in the approaching elections.
However, on green cards, Indian born people occupied fourth slot with 59,281 green cards being alloted to them ( or 5.45 per cent of the total)- behind Mexico, Cuba and China in that order. Further, comparison of statistical growth shows a negative figure for most countries, except Cuba. Increased vetting of green card applications contributed to the negative growth, say immigartion experts.
According to data collected by CATO, a US based think-tank, as of April 2018, 13.1 lakh Mexicans (or 28 per cent of the total backlog) were caught up in the green card backlog in both family and employment categories. Indians followed, with 9.2 lakh (or 19 per cent of the total backlog).