Image Global Immigration Partners
'I'm a Little Scared': Why More Legal US Residents Are Rushing to Apply for Citizenship
By Daniel Gonzalez
Legal US residents across the US are rushing to apply for citizenship to protect themselves from being caught up in President Donald Trump's expanding immigration crackdown, lawyers and advocates say.
The spike in interest in applying for citizenship is fueled by recent incidents involving legal permanent residents being detained by immigration authorities, including efforts by the Trump administration to deport legal permanent residents who took part in protests at Columbia University in New York.
Legal US residents, especially those who were previously undocumented, say the Trump administration's immigration crackdown makes them feel increasingly uneasy, even though as green card holders they now have permission to live in the US permanently.
They say they have watched with alarm as the Trump administration's immigration crackdown has rapidly expanded, focusing at first on undocumented immigrants with criminal records, but then widening to even legal immigrants, including increased scrutiny of legal permanent residents not because of crimes they may have committed that might make them deportable but for their political views and activities.
Legal US residents say they now believe that becoming a US citizen, once viewed as an option, has turned into a necessity under the Trump administration, to better ensure they aren't kicked out of the country.
"I'm watching the news every day," said Guillermo Montejano, 55, a former undocumented immigrant from Mexico, who has been a legal US resident for nearly 10 years.
The cabinet maker said news coverage of the Trump administration immigration crackdowns, including detaining some legal US residents, has made him increasingly nervous. He's applying for citizenship now before any new Trump policies make it harder.
"I'm a little scared about how everything is getting worse in this country. I'm trying to be safe," Montejano said.
How many legal permanent residents are there in the US?
The US has more than 13 million legal permanent residents, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Having a green card, the document that identifies the holder as a legal permanent resident, allows you to live and work in the United States.
Green card holders can be deported if they are convicted of aggravated felonies — among them DUIs involving injuries — and stripped of their legal status by an immigration judge.
US citizens, on the other hand, generally can't be deported, except in rare instances, experts say.
Nearly 10.8 million legal permanent residents are eligible to apply for citizenship, including about 193,000 living in Arizona, according to data from USCIS, the federal agency that administers the nation's legal immigration and visa system.
Many are being prompted by the Trump administration's tougher immigration policies to apply for citizenship to protect themselves from being deported, immigration lawyers say.
"They wouldn't have had these concerns even under Trump 1.0, or under the Biden administration or at any other time in history," said Delia Salvatierra, a Phoenix immigration lawyer. "Lawful permanent residents have never been a target, other than those who commit a crime."
Why legal US residents who were previously undocumented are afraid
"Nobody is safe. Not even if you have a green card," said Rocio Adriana Anzo, 54.
Anzo and her husband, Servando Gonzalez, 59, are legal permanent residents applying for citizenship.
Anzo said they were previously undocumented immigrants from Mexico. Six years ago they were able to adjust their immigration status to legal permanent residents after one of their children, a US-born citizen, turned 21 and petitioned for them through the family-based legal immigration system.
Legal permanent residents are eligible to apply for US citizenship after five years, three if married to a US citizen, according to USCIS.
Most green cards are valid for 10 years. Legal US residents must apply to renew their green cards before they expire.
Anzo said she and her husband had planned to wait to apply for citizenship mostly because of the cost. The fee to apply to renew a green card is between $500 and $550, depending if done online or on paper, according to USCIS.
But after Trump took office and signed a series of immigration-related executive orders on his first day in office — including one prohibiting birthright citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants, currently blocked by the courts — Anzo and her husband decided to spend about $5,000 to hire a lawyer to help them apply for citizenship.
Anzo said she and her husband fear their previous status as undocumented immigrants could somehow be used to try and deport them under the shifting focus of Trump's immigration crackdown.
She said she also convinced a brother-in-law and sister-in-law who are legal US residents to apply for citizenship after immigration authorities arrested and detained Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil while deciding whether to revoke his green card and deport him for participating in pro-Palestinian protests, which administration officials say amounted to supporting terrorist activates.
"I said, 'See, I'm telling you. Something is going on that we don't know what's going to happen,'" Anzo recalls telling them. "Things can just change."
Interest in applying for citizenship spiked after Trump took office
Anzo and her husband are hardly alone, said Gerald Burns, an immigration lawyer who is helping the couple with their naturalization applications.
Interest in applying for citizenship picked up headed into the presidential election, but it spiked once Trump won and took office, Burns said.
"It became more of a crunch that people were concerned, and the best way to protect themselves might be to naturalize," Burns said. "You know, people that were perfectly fine with being (legal permanent residents) were jumping in line and getting after it."
Conversely, Trump's immigration crackdown is also making some legal permanent residents wary of applying for citizenship out of concern that under increased scrutiny even minor transgressions from their distant past could end up getting them deported.
"It's a danger point for people who ordinarily and historically have not had to worry about becoming citizens if they had something in their past but clearly they showed rehab," Burns said.
The Trump administration's apparent targeting of legal permanent residents who have expressed political views the government believes are a threat to national security also has had a chilling effect on legal permanent residents applying for citizenship, Burns said.
Burns said he has a client who is a longtime legal permanent resident and was in the process of applying for citizenship. But he decided to put his application on hold because he's been very vocal against Trump's policies, Burns said.
"He's petrified to apply for citizenship," Burns said. "We were going to do it, but then this Khalil thing came out and he said, 'Nope. I'm not going to do it.'"
How many legal US residents apply for citizenship?
USCIS did not reply to requests for information about increases in naturalization applications.
About 781,000 legal US residents applied for naturalization in fiscal year 2022, according to the latest USCIS data.
About 818,500 legal US residents became citizens in fiscal year 2024, according to USCIS. The leading countries of birth for newly naturalized citizens are Mexico, India and the Philippines.
A "major uptick" in legal US residents applying for citizenship has occurred nationally since Trump took office, said Kelli Stump, an immigration lawyer in Oklahoma City who is also the current president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
She attributed the increase to several factors, including the Trump administration's increased scrutiny of legal permanent residents.
The widespread media attention Khalil's detention has received "opened the eyes to a lot of people," Stump said.
There has also been an increase in legal permanent residents being detained upon re-entry to the US, she said.
"We're actually seeing … people being detained on their way back in or they're put into secondary (inspection) for a couple of hours and their entire immigration history is being reviewed," Stump said.
Legal US citizens are also being more heavily scrutinized during their citizenship interviews, Stump said.
Stump said USCIS officials are asking legal US residents every single question on application forms during citizenship interviews, where in the past they skipped over some that were obviously irrelevant, such as, "were you ever a Nazi. If the person was born in 1995, of course they were never a Nazi."
"The interviews are taking longer, they're being asked every question, and the English knowledge requirement is being super-scrutinized, not just the English test for the reading and the writing, but also on that application," Stump said.
Some legal US residents may be applying for citizenship out of concern the Trump administration may soon make it harder to naturalize, said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the US Immigration Policy Program at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Center.
In December 2020, at the end of Trump's first term, USCIS implemented a new citizenship test that was harder to pass, Gelatt said.
USCIS, however, went back to the old test soon after President Joe Biden became president in January 2021, Gelatt said.
The Trump administration could revise the citizenship test again to make it harder, Gelatt said. The administration also could make legal US residents provide more personal information on citizenship application forms that makes it harder to get through the screening and vetting process, Gelatt said.
Nonprofit groups holding citizenship workshops
Some nonprofit organizations are adding workshops to help legal US residents navigate the process of applying for citizenship.
Mi Familia Vota helped 45 legal US residents complete their citizenship applications with the help of a team of immigration lawyers at a March 22 workshop, said Monica Sandschafer, the Arizona state director.
In the past the nonprofit group, which works to increase the number of Latino voters, held two citizenship workshops a year. This year the group is organizing four to meet growing interest in applying for citizenship, Sandschafer said.
"Right now, there is a lot of fear and uncertainty in the immigrant community and folks being aware that having a legal permanent resident card doesn't actually make you permanent, that it's citizenship that makes you permanent," Sandschafer said.
"Folks (are) wanting to have that kind of stability and security for their families, as well as having a voice in the future of this country."
Republic reporter Kunle Falayi contributed to this article. It originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why more legal US residents are rushing to apply for citizenship . USA Today Network
