“The agency has really moved away from its
mission and become more of an enforcement
agency that carries out the agenda of the Trump
administration,” said Diego Iñiguez-Lopez,
policy and campaigns manager for the National
Partnership for New Americans, an immigrant
advocacy organization.
USCIS typically swears in 15,000 new citizens per
week. The agency said there were about 110,000
people waiting to take the oath when they shut
down in-person operations in March because
of the virus. It said it expects to work through
the backlog by the end of July, thanks in part
to ceremonies like the one held at the federal
building in Detroit or similar ones outside a minor
league baseball stadium in Des Moines, Iowa, and
a community recreation center near San Diego.
Some in Congress have pushed to allow virtual
swearing-in ceremonies, but the agency
has refused.
Behind those waiting for the ceremony are a
long line of some 700,000 people who have
submitted applications for naturalization, facing
an average time to process that has risen to 10
months from six months in the last year of the
Obama administration.
That backlog has a number of causes, including
a surge in interest due to the election of a
president who has made restricting immigration
a centerpiece of his administration and the
increased scrutiny of applications, said Capps,
director of research for U.S. programs at the
Migration Policy Institute.
Acting Deputy Department of Homeland
Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli presided over a
naturalization ceremony Monday in Washington