Backlog in Naturalization Applications Will Take Nearly Three Years to Clear

It will take almost three years for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to clear the naturalization backlog due to a surge in applications last summer, agency officials say.

According to previously unpublished figures that USCIS has given the Migration Policy Institite, during May, June, and July 2007, the agency received 737,223 applications — three-and-a-half times the number of applications (207,536) received during the same period a year earlier. As of October 2007, USCIS had almost 1 million naturalization applications pending approval.

The surge caused the processing time to more than double — now standing at 16 to 18 months for applications filed during the summer of 2007, compared to the six-to-seven-month timeframe for applications filed in 2006.

The increase coincided with the agency's January 2007 announcement of a rise in the fee for adult naturalization (N-400) applications from $330 to $595 beginning July 30, 2007.

Officials attribute the application increase to several other factors as well, including citizenship campaigns launched across the country, the charged political climate of the immigration debate, and the 2008 presidential elections.

In response to the "summer surge" in naturalization applications, USCIS expanded work hours for its employees, detailed 84 staff members to its application processing centers, and hired additional contract staff. The agency also plans to hire 1,800 additional employees, including retired USCIS workers, to help cope with the increased workload.

USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez has stated that he hopes these efforts will reduce processing times to presurge levels by April 2010.

Applicants, several members of Congress, and immigrant advocacy groups including the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) have raised concerns over these delays. Among the concerns are that the backlog will prevent recent applicants from naturalizing in time to vote in the November 2008 presidential elections. Immigrant advocates have stated that USCIS should have anticipated the surge, given that the factors could have been predicted.

Members of Congress have also pointed out that when USCIS first proposed the fee increase, the agency promised this action would result in decreased processing times.

In his testimony on USCIS backlogs before the House Immigration Subcommittee in 2005, Paul Zulkie (who served as national President of AILA from 2004-2005) criticized the ongoing USCIS practice of using current fee receipts to fund the processing of applications in the backlog pipeline. Unfortunately, nothing has changed in the last four years.