Japa: 34,000 Nigerians secured US citizenship in three years – Report

Japa

The United States granted citizenship to 34,289 Nigerians between 2020 and 2022, the latest Naturalisations Annual Flow Report from the US Department of Homeland Security shows.

Compiled by the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, the report pulls its numbers from Form N-400—the application form every would-be American files.

The data is also drawn from the electronic case files that US Citizenship and Immigration Services use to track each applicant from fingerprinting to the oath ceremony.

Figures obtained by Sunday PUNCH indicated that 8,930 Nigerians became naturalised citizens between October 2019 and September 2020.

That period included an 11-week COVID-19 shutdown—March 18 – June 4, 2020—that temporarily halted all oath ceremonies.

The following year, 10,921 Nigerians obtained citizenship as USCIS worked through its pandemic backlog.

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. Punch