Over 34,000 Nigerians naturalised as US citizens between 2020, 2022 – Report

At least 34,289 Nigerians were granted United States citizenship through naturalisation between 2020 and 2022, according to the latest Naturalisations Annual Flow Report released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The report, compiled by the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, shows that Nigeria ranked 15th globally among the top 20 countries of birth for individuals who became U.S. citizens within the three-year period.

It draws data from Form N-400 — the official application for naturalisation — and tracks applicants via the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) electronic case system, which covers every stage from fingerprinting to the oath ceremony. Additional data is also sourced from the Central Index System.

Naturalisation is the legal process by which foreign nationals acquire U.S. citizenship after meeting certain criteria under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Once naturalised, foreign-born individuals gain nearly all the rights and responsibilities accorded to citizens by birth — including the right to vote.

The number of Nigerians naturalising has steadily risen over the three-year span, increasing by 58.8%. In 2020, 8,930 Nigerians were naturalised, representing 1.4% of the 628,258 total U.S. naturalisations that year. In 2021, as USCIS worked through a pandemic-induced backlog caused by an 11-week COVID-19 lockdown, the number increased by 22.3% to 10,921.

The upward trend continued in 2022, with 14,438 Nigerians taking the oath — an all-time high. This marked a 32% jump from the previous year and accounted for 3% of all 248,553 Africans naturalised during the three-year window.

Regionally, Nigeria led African countries in U.S. naturalisations, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which saw its numbers nearly double in 2022 to about 6,000. Applicants from other African nations were grouped under “All other countries.”

The report highlighted that Africa recorded the fastest regional growth in naturalisation, with a 40% increase between 2021 and 2022.

Globally, Mexico topped the chart with 326,237 naturalisations from 2020 to 2022, followed by India (171,114), the Philippines (135,313), Cuba (126,203), the Dominican Republic (81,303), Vietnam (80,177), China (82,376), Jamaica (57,145), El Salvador (52,399) and Colombia (48,396). These ten countries together accounted for nearly half of the 2.4 million people who became U.S. citizens during the three-year period.

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