Around 46,100 odd Indians got US Citizenship in 2016, making them the second largest group. This is something good when you notice the record of Indians from the past few years. However, Mexicans continued the league of being at the top of the chart. Indians accounted for 6% of the total citizenship given by the US government on 7.53 lakh individuals during the fiscal year 2016 (October 1, 2015, to September 30, 2016), prior to recent data given by the US Department of homeland security (DHS).
A minor year-on-year fall in the number of citizenships being given is already visible, with immigration from Mexico showing a negative growth. Though Mexico is still leading the number of citizenship for them has fallen constantly when you compare it with previous years records. There is a great vetting of applications and an uprise in denials on ‘odd’ grounds that date back many years. At the same moment, unsure on work visa policies have spurred an important spike in the number of applications.
With 9.72 lakh applications for US citizenship (or naturalization), the fiscal year 2016 saw an increase of 24% when contrasted with the previous year. Comparatively, the 7.83 lakh applications in 2015 were only 1% greater than the number in 2014. Thus the growth rate was not much if one see the record of the year 2014 and 2015.
Usually, only green card holders can go to naturalization. While the green card is a permission to live and work for longterm in the US, the flux in visa policies and focus on more jobs for citizens is making many green card holders to opt for US citizenship.
To this John C Yang, president of the non-profit body Asian Americans Advancing Justice said “Indians… more than ever recognise the value of citizenship. A citizen has certain rights and protections a fundamental right being that to vote additional job opportunities. Given the anti-immigrant rhetoric, immigrants are more aware of the need to be protected,”
A report by the National Partnership for New Americans explains : The backlog of pending applications has increased by 77% in the past two years. At the end of June 2017, there were 7.08 lakh applicants for US citizenship in the cue to be processed, up from 4 lakh at the same time two years earlier.
