Legal Mexican immigrants comprise the largest national-origin group in the United States eligible to become citizens. The Legal Side of Mexican Immigration, a paper by the MacArthur-supported Woodrow Wilson Center, finds that Mexican immigrants’ low rate of naturalization is due in part to increasingly de-concentrated settlement patterns, with immigrants moving to places outside traditional gateway cities and states. As a result, researchers suggest that policy and citizenship efforts should concentrate particularly on citizenship-eligible Mexican immigrants in the U.S.
