US citizenship applications are backlogged, prolonging the wait for civil and voting rights
- Written by Ming Hsu Chen, Professor of Law and Political Science, University of Colorado Boulder
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people apply for citizenship in the United States, and America celebrates them with pageantry at citizenship ceremonies across the country. There’s even an annual Citizenship Day in mid-September.
But, as a researcher who studies citizenship, I think that Americans should know that there are also long...

