U.S. Immigrants and Emigrants

WaPo and NYT have competing stories of great interest today.

The NYT reports that nearly 1 million migrants became U.S. citizens in 2022: a 15-year high. There are another 670,000 naturalization applications pending! The NYT article also clued me into changes coming w/r/t naturalization that hadn't been on my radar. Did you know that USCIS is redesigning the oral portion of the natz test? They plan to ask applicants "to describe three photographs of everyday activities, the weather or food" with the goal of testing "ordinary use of English."

Meanwhile, WaPo has an absolutely fascinating piece about U.S. emigration -- looking at where Americans land around the globe when the choose to leave this country. Do you know the largest receiving country? Go ahead. Take a moment to think. Yup, it's Mexico. And most of the Americans living in Mexico are children of Mexican citizens, so-called "accidental Americans." (Not sure how I feel about that particular moniker.) Where do others go? "Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, Australia and other advanced economies."

The WaPo article also has this wonderful nugget -- did you know that a number of Americans seek asylum overseas each year? How many, do you think? Turns out the number for 2022 was 426, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. (They also headed for Germany, the U.K. and Canada.)

Data regarding emigration is somewhat sketchy. As WaPo notes "The U.S. government does not keep a close count of Americans who have left the country; few governments do." The data cited in the article comes from a variety of sources -- researchers and international organizations.

-KitJ