More than 50,000 Indian immigrants received US citizenship last year, according to recent Department of Homeland Security data. The number of Indians given naturalization increased by as much as 10% in 2017, making them the second biggest such immigrant group after Mexicans.
Although there was a 6% fall during the 2017 fiscal year, around 4,614 more Indian immigrants became US citizens, in comparison to the 2016 fiscal year. The highest number of naturalizations occurred with Mexican immigrants, which increased by as much as 14% to 15,009. India was in second place, with a rise of 10% to 50,802, and China with a rise of 5% to 1,880.
President Donald Trump intends to limit the number of immigrant refugees allowed to enter the US each year to 30,000, according to a report in the New York Times. It would be the lowest such limit put in place by a President on the immigrant refugee program since it began in 1980. The backlog of citizenship applications being processed has also increased by as much as 93% in the three years since 2015, the National Partnership for New Americans claims (NPNA).
On 17 September, the NPNA and several other associations filed a complaint due to US Citizenship and Immigration Services failing to respond to an August Freedom of Information Act request to release documents on the backlog.