When Terry Duffy received her naturalization certificate, it was a magical moment for her two kids. “As soon as she touches that piece of paper, she’s an American!” marveled her son Sean. Caitlin expected the paper to make her mom immediately lose her Scottish accent.
Duffy was one of about 250 individuals to enter the U.S. District Court building as residents and come out as citizens Friday. The four naturalization sessions followed four sessions on Wednesday. The ceremonies usually happen only once a month in New Haven, but a backlog of applications is currently being processed.
Click the arrows to see more scenes from the ceremonies.
Duffy was naturalized in the first ceremony of the day. Friends and family members gathered to celebrate with the new citizens, who came from 33 different countries, Albania to Yugoslavia. Duffy, who has lived in the U.S. for 18 years, was joined by several supporters who had helped her through the citizenship process.
Heather Gluck, a co-worker of Duffy at Pfizer, had quizzed her with American history flash cards during their commute to work.
Duffy said that she had been nervous about mailing in her application, holding onto the completed documents for a month.
Her friend Erika Brauch said that she had helped Duffy take the final steps. “I walked her through it over the phone,” said Brauch.
“It’s a big deal.” explained Duffy. “You’re saying this is your home.”
“It’s scary,” she continued. “You don’t lose anything, but now you’re saying this is your country.”
Duffy will retain her British citizenship, becoming a dual citizen. She said that she’s looking forward to being grouped with the Americans when she takes a cruise, rather than with French-speaking Canadians, as happened once before.
Duffy said that she was motivated to get citizenship because of her kids. She wants to be able to vote and have a say in their future. She and her friends had taken the day off work; Duffy had gotten the school principal’s permission to take her kids out of class for the day.
A “Loaded Question” ?
The approximately 500 new citizenships that have been processed just this week in New Haven mark a significant increase in naturalization ceremonies for the downtown U.S. District Court. A USCIS attorney, who asked to remain anonymous said that the increase is due to a “fairly substantial backlog” in the system. Asked about why there might be a backlog, the attorney warily replied, “that’s a very loaded question.”
He declined to elaborate, but later offered a couple of theories of why applications may be backed up. The first is that naturalization fees doubled a year ago, and there may have been rush of applications submitted before the fee increase, which are just being processed now.
The second reason for the backlog, the attorney suggested, is that there is a goal to register as many new voters as possible before the elections in November.
According to a recent Washington Post article, the backlog is due to a delay in FBI name checks. The slowdown in naturalization processing is simply the result of a breakdown in interdepartmental bureaucracy.