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Record number of new U.S. Citizens in 2022!
Kyle Huffman • Jan 05, 2023
USCIS has released its Fiscal Year 2022 Progress Report, which has shown some interesting trends in the world of immigration. Most notably, USCIS was able to process over 1.1 million naturalization cases and welcome over 1 million new U.S. citizens to the United States in 2022.
This represents the highest number of naturalizations for USCIS in nearly 15 years. At the same time, these statistics show that USCIS has made great progress in reducing the backlog of applications for citizenship that had not been processed during the pandemic. While 2020 and 2021 saw the highest backlog of immigration benefit requests on record, the 2022 statistics show significant efforts to reduce those backlogs.
Along with record numbers of new citizens, the report details how USCIS’ efforts, fueled by new budgetary appropriations authorized by congress specifically to address this backlog, has resulted in significantly reducing the wait time for employment authorization applications.
USCIS also discusses its plans for the coming year 2023. Among these plans are USCIS’ commitment to improving the asylum filing process and creating greater efficiency for refugees. Increasing these processes and efficiencies would be a great improvement, particularly for this vulnerable segment of the population. Hopefully, the Biden Administration will be successful in its current efforts to end Title 42, which allows for the swift removal of some asylum seekers without proper procedure in the courts as a measure to protect public health. While the Biden Administration has been attempting to end Title 42, many Republican lawmakers are urging the courts to delay the removal of this process.
This blog is not intended to be legal advice and nothing here should be construed as establishing an attorney client relationship. Please schedule a consultation with an immigration attorney before acting on any information read here.
Kyle Huffman
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