34,000 Nigerians get US citizenship by naturalisation in 3yrs

A total of 34,289 Nigerians were granted citizenship by naturalisation by the United States government between 2020 and 2022.

Latest data on the Naturalisations Annual Flow Report from the US Department of Homeland Security shows that Nigeria emerged top 20 country of birth of persons naturalised within the three year period and ranked 15th on the list.

Compiled by the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, the report pulls its numbers from Form N-400, the application form every prospective American files and include information such as the date and country of birth of the applicant, sex, marital status as well as the state of residence.

The data is also drawn from the electronic case files (Electronic Immigration system) that US Citizenship and Immigration Services use to track each applicant from fingerprinting to the oath ceremony and data from the Central Index System.

The naturalisation process confers U.S. citizenship on applicants who have fulfilled the requirements established in the US Immigration and Nationality Act, INA.

After naturalization, foreign-born citizens enjoy almost all the same benefits, rights, and responsibilities U.S. Constitution gives to U.S. citizens at birth, including the right to vote.

Meanwhile, the data shows that the number of Nigerians being granted citizenship through the naturalisation process has been on consistent increase, with the figure rising by 58.8 per cent within the three year period.

A breakdown shows that in 2020, 8,930 Nigerians obtained citizenship, representing 1.4 per cent of all the persons (628,258) granted citizenship by the US in 2020.

The number rose by 22.3 per cent to 10,921 in 2021 as US Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS, worked through its pandemic backlog, resulting from an 11-week COVID-19 lockdown that temporarily halted all oath ceremonies.

In 2022, 14,438 Nigerians took the oath, an all-time high for the country and a 32 per cent jump from the previous year.