Fewer people became U.S. citizens in recent months compared to the past two years, with a group representing naturalized immigrants raising concerns that the Trump administration is actively suppressing new voters just days before the midterms.
Newsweek analysis of naturalization data showed approvals fell to around 57,700 during the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2026, compared to over 200,000 in the same periods in 2024 and 2025, while pending cases soared above 742,000, according to the latest data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Citizenship grants the right to vote in federal elections, with the latest figures prompting concern from the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) that a deliberate effort was underway to prevent new voter registrations.
"When I looked at the data, I just see a swift denial of, or negation of, processing applications and so we can ascertain that it's part of a strategy to cull or to limit people's access to naturalization and therefore civic engagement," Nicole Melaku, the executive director of the NPNA, told Newsweek. "In another political reality and in other administrations, you would not see that many applications pending and just sitting in a backlog."
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Newsweek it had changed its policy from the "rubber-stamping" under the Biden administration.
Drop in Naturalizations: What the Data Shows
USCIS released its latest quarterly data on applications, running April through June 2026, in late September, showing a growing backlog of citizenship applications.
Newsweek compared Quarter 3 data for 2026 with the previous two years. The 2024 data fell under President Joe Biden, while the 2025 data belongs to the current Trump administration.
Two years ago, 218,720 applications for naturalization were approved by USCIS, with 462,974 pending. The numbers rose in 2025 to 241,326 approvals and 529,018 pending. By 2026, the approval rate dropped significantly to 57,697, while the number of applications waiting rose again to 742,138.
The biggest drops in approvals were seen in largely Democrat-leaning or large metropolitan areas.
At the San Jose, California, field office, 317 cases were approved April-June this year, compared to 9,041 in 2025—a 96.5 percent drop. In Seattle, Washington, approvals fell 90.3 percent year-on-year, while in Houston, cases were down just shy of 50 percent.
Across the U.S., naturalization approvals fell in 2026, but some of the biggest drops came in the states that tend to have higher numbers of immigrants—California, New York, Florida, and Texas, which often have the highest numbers of naturalized citizens.
Several of the states affected are places where naturalized voters make up a substantial share of the electorate.
According to Pew Research Center in 2024, 55 percent of naturalized voters lived in Florida, Texas, California, and New York. In 13 states and Washington, D.C., naturalized citizens made up around 10 percent or more of the number of eligible voters.
"Vast numbers of people in blue cities, and in what we call gateway cities with large numbers of immigrants, are just sitting there without being processed," Melaku said. "You look in Philly, 17,000 applications. In Houston, 31,000 applications pending. We have Georgia, 17,300 applications just pending.
"So you look at the volatility in those particular markets or parts of the country, and you could pretty much see that they're dragging their feet on processing these applications and making sure that these people will be stuck in either a backlog and or a never-ending adjudication with no clear timeline on when they can finally take their oath of citizenship."
Are New Voters Being Kept From the Midterms?
Delays and backlogs in immigration application processing are nothing new, but attorneys and advocates have been raising concerns over the past 19 months that Trump administration policies have made the situation worse.
Adam Klein, a former senior DHS official and co-founder of Globali.ai, told Newsweek that during his time with USCIS, similar concerns about backlogs were raised.
"During the first Trump administration, there were concerns that the threatened furlough of thousands of USCIS employees in 2020 could slow naturalizations ahead of the election," Klein said, explaining that furloughs were canceled when the agency's finances improved.
"I would be concerned about a significant decline in naturalizations, particularly if qualified applicants are waiting longer to become citizens," Klein said. "Voting is one of the fundamental rights of citizenship, and USCIS itself recognizes the naturalization ceremony as the culmination of that process. USCIS doesn't have to deny citizenship to affect someone's ability to vote. Delaying an otherwise eligible applicant's naturalization until after an election can have the same practical effect."
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The second Trump administration has sought to tighten rules around legal immigration, despite President Donald Trump's focus on illegal immigration during his 2024 campaign. Over the past year, numbers of visa approvals and other immigration benefits have fallen at both the State Department, for temporary visitors or new arrivals, and at USCIS, which deals with immigrants within the U.S.
The White House posted to X over the past weekend, celebrating an analysis from The New York Times which outlined these declines, something Melaku said was concerning when USCIS was supposed to be working on approving applications as they come in.
"If they are staffed in these field offices to be adjudicating these processes and not grow the backlog and allow people to have timely and fair adjudications, number one," she said. "Congress does have oversight of this agency, and so then what, in fact, are they prioritizing and why, is one of the questions that we have.
"The second question is, why, if we say we want people to access this process the fair way, and you hear this a lot from the anti-immigrant faction of 'get in line,' these people are in line, they've paid their fees, they're willing to take the oath of citizenship, they've basically submitted their initial paperwork for their green card, they've been vetted. Why are we not making this, in fact, a fair and timely process for these individuals?"
What Does DHS Say?
When asked about the accusation that cases were being deliberately delayed, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Newsweek that it was working to undo a policy of "rubber-stamping naturalization applications" under the Biden administration.
"Under the Trump administration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is reinforcing robust screening and vetting and has implemented reforms to ensure U.S. citizenship is reserved for those who qualify," a DHS spokesperson said. "This includes reestablishing the 2020 naturalization civics test, strengthening English language proficiency requirements, screening social media for anti-American activities, and ensuring applicants demonstrate good moral character and attachment to the Constitution.
"USCIS will not take shortcuts in the naturalization process," the spokesperson said. "Naturalization is a privilege, not a right."
That message has been repeated by Trump's DHS, which has also ramped up denaturalization filings in recent months, with some cases against those who have been American citizens for many years.
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Klein, who spent some of his two decades with DHS adjudicating citizenship applications, said the rhetoric around citizenship applications had noticeably shifted since January 2025, including referring to immigrants as "aliens."
"Having personally administered the oath of allegiance, I find that change especially troubling," Klein said. "I remember when the government’s message to new citizens was one of welcome and belonging. Today, I worry that the broader rhetoric sends a very different message, particularly to naturalized Americans who may feel that their citizenship is somehow less secure or less legitimate than that of someone born here.
Klein said that across administrations he worked under, there was a shared understanding that part of USCIS' core mission was to help eligible applicants become Americans, and that when language and priorities shift, the importance of naturalization and the government's commitment to the citizenship it grants was diminished.
"Citizenship is not a political favor granted by an administration. It is a legal right for those who meet the requirements, and USCIS has a responsibility to adjudicate those applications fairly and without unnecessary delay," he said. "When those delays affect whether someone can exercise their right to vote, the consequences extend beyond immigration policy to the integrity of our democracy."
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Gray R. Thomas