It takes green card holders about 7 years to become citizens, according to a new report. Korean Americans have about 8.7 years to become citizens after obtaining permanent residency.
On September 17, USCIS announced the naturalization ceremony schedule in recognition of Citizenship Day and said that it has “recently reduced the backlog of citizenship applications by 60 percent and shortened the citizenship processing time to within six months.”
In the three months from April to June of this year, a total of 240,526 citizenship applications were received, of which 219,689 (91.3%) have already been approved for citizenship. The first-time pass rate for the citizenship test was about 89.5%.
According to USCIS, as of fiscal year 2022-2023, the nationality of green card holders who apply for citizenship the fastest after becoming eligible is Nigeria (5.6 years). This was followed by Pakistan (5.9 years), Brazil (5.9 years), India (5.9 years), and Iran (6.0 years). Korean Americans applied for citizenship after spending about a median of 8.7 years as permanent residents.
The highest number of citizenship approvals came from Mexico (115,000), followed by India (59,100), the Philippines (44,800), and the Dominican Republic (35,200).
BY EUNBYUL KIM, HOONSIK WOO [kim.eb@koreadailyny.com]
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