Interest in becoming an American citizen is reaching record levels. According to USCIS they have received an unprecedented number of naturalization application in the last 12 months. USCIS officials say during the 2016 fiscal year they received more than 971,000 applications for naturalization compared to 738,000 in 2015.
The trend is one FileRight.com has also experienced first hand. Within the first three months of 2017 FileRight.com saw a 200 percent increase in customers filing citizenship forms.
USCIS admits their ability to process the applications has been complicated by technological issues and the introduction of higher filing fees. Despite those issues interest in naturalization remains high.
By the end of 2016, USCIS is reporting almost 637,000 applications were pending in their systems compared to 389,000 in 2015.
The president of the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce Peter Guzman has spoken to FileRight.com about the USCIS backlog.
“With today’s technology. I still can’t believe that it takes so many years to do things even the right way,” Guzman said. “What I can’t understand is the handwritten process, the archaic process, especially when technology exists such as FileRight.com to make that go away,” Guzman said.
In an attempt to reach out to the community for solutions, the USCIS Ombudsman Julie Kirchner will be hosting a teleconference in the coming weeks to discuss the current backlog and increase in naturalization applications.