Trump, who said he wants immigrants from countries like Norway, has slowed down citizenship processing. Photo: Gage Skidmore–Flickr.
Members of Congress and immigrant advocates are formally launching a campaign to tear down Trump’s “Second Wall,” the slowing down of processing of eligible immigrants to U.S. citizenship.
The campaign challenges record-high naturalization backlogs. The organizers urge eligible lawful permanent residents to naturalize now.
The campaign is led by the National Partnership for New Americans along with a coalition of immigrant rights organizations, Representatives Zoe Lofgren and Luis Gutierrez, and a growing list of congressional members and mayors.
The backlog is 729,400 citizenship applications before the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). This shocking doubling of the backlogs has occurred over the past two years.
At the current rate, it would take USCIS over 25 years to get back down to the Obama administration’s backlog level of 380,639 applications in 2015, not including new applications. The backlog prevents eligible lawful permanent residents from accessing the right to citizenship, as envisioned by the nation’s founders, created by the Constitution, and codified by federal law.
NPNA and the coalition is filing a Freedom of Information Act request to increase the transparency and accountability of USCIS; applying Congressional and Mayoral inquiry and scrutiny over the agency; encouraging eligible lawful permanent residents to apply for citizenship; and analyzing and reporting USCIS data on the processing, scrutiny, and wait times related to citizenship applications.
The National Partnership for New Americans is a national multiethnic, multiracial partnership representing the country’s 37 largest regional immigrant and refugee rights organizations in 31 states.
