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Each month, thousands of people become U.S. citizens, gaining the right to vote. As the Trump administration seeks to limit paths to citizenship, some groups worry that could reduce voter registration efforts. NPR's Ximena Bustillo reports.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Barbara Zia is the copresident of the League of Women Voters of D.C. Each month, her organization attends naturalization ceremonies to help new citizens become new voters.
BARBARA ZIA: If there are maybe 125 people at each ceremony, maybe 90% of them register to vote.
BUSTILLO: They get packets with registration forms, buttons encouraging them to vote and flyers explaining how voting works.
ZIA: We find that people, when they get to this point in the journey toward citizenship, they are really energized about exercising their full rights as a U.S. citizen.
BUSTILLO: The League of Women Voters is among the various nonpartisan groups helping people across the country register to vote ahead of the 2026 midterms this fall. These groups are bracing for a new challenge - fewer people getting naturalized. There's no public data yet for the number of naturalizations for fiscal year 2025, but in D.C. this month at the federal courthouse, 104 people were naturalized, down from the usual 125, observers say. Katie Campbell Shumway has noticed a similar decline in Houston, Texas, since October.
KATIE CAMPBELL SHUMWAY: Last year alone in 2025 for naturalization ceremonies, we registered over 14,000 new citizens.
BUSTILLO: She's the executive director of the League of Women Voters in Houston.
SHUMWAY: This year, because of the reductions in the number of applicants who will be pushed through to be accepted into citizenship, we expect that number to only be around 6,500. And so it's decreased in more than half.
BUSTILLO: A spokesperson for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service said the agency will, quote, "not take shortcuts in the adjudications process." There are other limits over the past year. Nongovernmental groups are now barred from registering voters at ceremonies held by USCIS, so groups like the League of Women Voters can only register new citizens at ceremonies held at courthouses. The group is suing the administration over this new policy, saying it limits access to voter registration. The USCIS defends the policy and says the agency has limited resources to make sure outside groups have access to these ceremonies.
Despite these changes, newly naturalized citizens told NPR that they were excited to vote this year. Here's Zaida Meza from Guatemala, who became a new citizen in Virginia.
ZAIDA MEZA: I love this country, and I want to vote in the federal elections.
BUSTILLO: And she'll have a chance to do that during the midterm elections this year. Ximena Bustillo, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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