Gaining thousands of new voters before the election could be the motivation behind the drive to clear the backlog of naturalization applications.
"They won’t admit that," Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, told Fox News Digital when asked if gaining voters could be behind a push to naturalize more U.S. citizens. "They will describe it as naturalization is the ultimate goal and we want people to become Americans… but it’s always a political tactic to get more citizens with the assumption they will vote for you."
Ries’ comments come after a New York Times report last week revealed that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USIS) is processing naturalization applications at speeds not seen in roughly a decade, taking an average of 4.9 months to process applications in the first nine months of the current fiscal year.
The pace is far faster than processing speeds of just three years ago, when it took roughly 11.5 months for an applicant to gain U.S. citizenship. Overall, the current pace of new naturalizations has not been seen since 2013 and 2014, the New York Times reported.
IMMIGRANTS BECOMING CITIZENS AT BREAKNECK SPEED AS ELECTION APPROACHES: REPORT
So far, 3.3 million immigrants have become naturalized citizens since President Biden took office, the report noted, pointing out that Biden shortened the application to 14 pages instead of the previous 20 and made it easier for low-income applicants to qualify for discounts on the $710 fee to apply.
The report also noted that the increased pace of naturalizations could play a role in this year’s election, with thousands of new potential voters becoming citizens every week.
"The surge in naturalization efficiency isn’t just about clearing backlogs; it’s potentially reshaping the electorate, merely months before a pivotal election," Xiao Wang, chief executive of Boundless, a company that offers services to immigrants seeking help with the naturalization process, told the New York Times. "Every citizenship application could be a vote that decides Senate seats or even the presidency."
According to Ries, those extra votes are likely part of the motivation behind the new processing speeds.
"This administration has shown they cut corners," Ries said. "Anywhere there is vetting involved, they’re not much interested in thorough vetting, so they cut corners and speed up the process, to give the alien an immigration benefit, and then ultimately, inevitably, that means they are granting this benefit to people who should not be getting it."
Ries also argued that the situation is not without precedent, pointing to a 1996 initiative to more quickly naturalize U.S. citizens that caused the Clinton administration to face questions over its motivations in pushing the pace.
According to a May 1997 New York Times report, the Clinton administration sought to strip nearly 5,000 immigrants of U.S. citizenship after the immigrants were found to have been wrongly naturalized during an Immigration and Naturalization Service drive to more quickly process applications.
The White House became heavily involved in the initiative, dubbed Citizenship USA, but later faced criticism for pushing a pace that allowed thousands of criminal migrants to become citizens and accusations that the administration was attempting to pad the electorate with thousands of favorable voters ahead of the 1996 election.
A United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General report would later acknowledge the shortcomings of the initiative, though it argued the White House’s involvement "did not result in INS lowering standards or changing its procedures in order to get more applicants naturalized in time for the 1996 election in the hope they would vote for the Democratic Party, as alleged."
Nevertheless, Ries argued that it is important for applications to be vetted carefully, noting that it is the last opportunity authorities get to examine a migrant's background before granting them a benefit that is rarely ever reversed.
"You can denaturalize somebody after the fact, but it’s rarely done, and it’s no easy thing," Ries said.
Ries also expressed concerns that USCIS has "watered down" the civics and English exams that applicants have to pass in order to be granted citizenship, with Ries arguing that the test portion of the process is now a "joke" and has resulted in citizens that struggle to assimilate into American society.
But reached for comment by Fox News Digital, a USCIS spokesperson argued that the increased pace of naturalizations comes from nothing more than "operational improvements over the last few years to reduce both the number of pending cases and overall processing times the agency inherited from the prior administration."
"USCIS personnel addressed processing issues and made changes to underlying procedures to achieve new efficiencies while ensuring the integrity and security of the immigration system, and the agency continues to explore all regulatory, policy and procedural options to improve processing times and decrease pending caseloads," the spokesperson added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
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