US citizenship approvals fell 72% in the first eight months of 2026 compared with the same period of 2025, according to a Washington Post report published Friday, 23 October 2026, and relayed by outlets including The Rio Times, Periódico Cubano and the Hindustan Times. The backlog of pending naturalization (Form N-400) applications has passed 800,000, up from roughly 500,000 when the second Trump term began in January 2025.
USCIS approved about 173,000 naturalization applications between January and August 2026, a sharp drop from the same period in prior years, the report found. Applicants currently face wait times of close to 13 months — long enough that some green card holders who filed in time still risk missing their oath ceremony, and therefore their ability to vote, before the 3 November 2026 midterm elections. Under US law, only citizens who have taken the Oath of Allegiance may vote; an approved application does not confer citizenship until the oath is administered, so a delayed ceremony date can leave an otherwise-eligible applicant unable to cast a ballot.
For green card holders anywhere in the pipeline toward US citizenship, the practical read is less about any one office’s approval rate and more about the national trend: slower decisions and a larger backlog mean building in more buffer time around any date-sensitive plan — voting, travel, or family petitions — that assumes the oath ceremony will happen on a particular schedule.
