Immigrants are becoming citizens faster than past decades

Newer immigrants, many more than in the past, are becoming citizens when they become eligible. And for many different reasons. DP

Study from Homeland Security division is very accurate

By Mike Swift, Mercury News

mercurynews.com: Orlino and Jonah Ordona of San Jose were concerned about rising immigration fees. Pre-med student Shilpa Muddagowni of Cupertino has her eye on a medical residency. Kenneth Leung of Berkeley wants to vote for John McCain in the Feb. 5 primary.

From hard-headed pragmatism to the civic idealism of voting, the immigrants who stood in line outside federal immigration offices in San Jose Friday morning had a range of reasons why they were there to become U.S. citizens.

"My kids are going to be growing up in this land. I don't want to be an observer," said Jia-Huey Yuan, 38, of Santa Clara, moments after she took the oath of citizenship. "I want to participate and really make an impact, to the society and to the nation."

According to a new and unprecedented analysis from the Department of Homeland Security, newer immigrants are moving more quickly into citizenship than those who became permanent residents in the 1970s and 1980s.

Among Asian immigrants who got their green cards in the early 1990s, between 53 and 59 percent went on to become citizens within 10 years, up from about 44 percent among Asians who got green cards in the early 1980s.

And while only about 20 percent of Mexican immigrants receiving green cards in the 1990s became citizens within a decade, Mexican immigrants "exhibited the greatest relative increase in [naturalization] rates between the earliest and latest cohorts," said the report, released this week by Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics.

Based on federal data between 1973 and 2005, this new, authoritative analysis is based on actual administrative records instead of polls or other statistical samples.
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