CHENNAI: Indians will need more patience if they want to achieve the grand “American dream” — as data shows the US government is not granting citizenships at the pace it was doing a decade ago.In the last 30 years, the US was at its most liberal in 2008, when it granted as many as 65,971 citizenships; a reflection of the influx of Indian highly skilled immigrant workers arriving on US shores at the rate of 120,000 workers a year between 1995-2000.While 2017 citizenship numbers (49,601) are an improvement from 2014 when it hit a decade-low (37,854) — the overall trend is still dampening as the number of immigrants have dropped to 1.51 million from 1.72 million during the same period.“The H-1B matter was a wake up call. Now companies are adopting a cautious approach given the changing policies. US companies do not require Indian techies as much as they needed earlier,” said Paul Dupius, CEO, Randstad India, a HR and staffing firm.Since the 1990s Indians have been the second or third largest immigrant population to be granted citizenship after Chinese and Mexicans. Most Indians take the highly skilled work visa-green card-citizenship route. But with immigration numbers on a decline, the need for a fresh influx of Indian engineers, MBAs and doctors is waning as more US corporates are looking to hiring locals.“More Indians started coming to the use, when US immigration policy started favouring skill-based immigration to one based on family-connections. The average time it takes to process a green card has gone up from a couple of years to as much as 7-8. Indians have made more applications than any other country in the world – which means they have a longer waiting period,” said Mark Davies, an immigration lawyer.Given that the biggest gateway to entering the US has been IT companies, the Trump administration’s recent policies are pushing US corporates to scale back recruitment of foreign workers.