Thread by @doug_rand

Kudos to @CASAforall and the whole @npnewamericans coalition for their Naturalize Now campaign to help 1 million legal residents become U.S. citizens as soon as possible.

Via @SuzGamboa @NBCNews:
nbcnews.com/news/latino/tr…

Unfortunately, whether you can complete the #naturalization process before Election Day 2020 depends on your ZIP code. If you happen to live in #Minneapolis, #Houston, #Dallas, #Miami, #FortMyers, or #Seattle, it may already be too late. Absurd but true:
boundless.com/american-citiz…

DHS spox "blamed agency backlogs on a doubling of pending cases during the Obama administration, saying their numbers had reached 700k at the start of 2017. Waits are more a function of higher application rates than slow processing, she said."

Here's why that's nonsense...

(1) @USCIS gets its $$ from user fees, not Congress. The more applications they receive, the more money they have. Like a business!

(2) Yet the latest data show a backlog of 732k citizenship applications, ~same as 6 months prior.

(3) And application rate was *down* last year!

Imagine if you were waiting 3 weeks for Amazon to deliver a package that used to take 4 days. You ask Amazon why the delay, & they say: "Hey, we're getting way more orders than usual; don't blame us!"

You would not be satisfied with that answer.

(CC @newamericans @NatImmForum)

Trump's USCIS regularly claims backlogs are due to "unprecedented and extraordinary demand," like in this letter to Congress (via @AILANational). Also in this letter:

2018 backlog: 2.4 million
2003 backlog: 3.6 million

"Unprecedented" = self-own + lie
aila.org/advo-media/wha…