It is noted that the sharp increase in the number of people who acquired US citizenship in 2008 is due to a serious backlog that occurred the previous year. Then 1.4 million people filed naturalization applications. But due to a shortage of staff at the US immigration service and numerous checks by the FBI, processing dragged on for 16-18 months.
In 2008, appropriate measures were taken to resolve the situation. Thanks to increased funding, immigration services were able to hire 1,600 additional employees and pay overtime to regular staff. At the same time, the interaction between immigration services and the FBI was optimized, which accelerated the background check process for citizenship applicants and reduced the number of pending applications from 350,000 to 33,000.
It is reported that starting from summer 2009, the background check process for 98% of individuals wishing to obtain US citizenship will take no more than 30 days. Among other things, this will significantly strengthen internal security, as it will reduce the period of legal stay of citizenship applicants in the US.
According to CNN, the increase in citizenship applications in 2007 was due to heated debates in Congress on immigration reform. Many human rights organizations at the time recommended that illegals apply for citizenship as soon as possible.
As Lenta.ru reports, in the 1960s and 1970s, between 100,000 and 200,000 people acquired US citizenship annually. In the 1980s, the number of naturalized citizens increased to 200,000-300,000 per year. A sharp spike occurred in the mid-1990s, when Congress passed a law to naturalize 2.7 million immigrants. As a result, about 1 million people became citizens in 1996. After that, the number of people acquiring citizenship fluctuated annually between 441,000 and 886,000.