There are plenty of people who are trying to become American, as well. My wife came here from Iran to study at an American University, and her conditional green card is set to expire next year. We want her to get her citizenship as fast as possible. Now it seems that USCIS has put all that on pause though, so we're sweating bullets over whether they'll actually let us file the petition to have the conditional aspect removed in a year's time. If they don't, we're fucked and all of the work and money(read: thousands of dollars) we put into putting her through the system properly will have been all for nothing. FYI I'm an American citizen.

Why doesn't she qualify for naturalization (married to a u.s. citizen?)

married to a citizen doesn't magically grant you anything. It makes you eligible for a K1 visa, and from there you join the same path from greencard to citizenship as everyone else.

Specifically, there's a minimum residency period before you can apply - usually 5 years, 3 if you're married. The conditional greencard is the first 18(? 24?) months, before you get the 10yr card - so if they're still conditional, there's no way they meet any minimums.

The path from marriage to citizenship is not automatic (nor inalienable).

See Soneil's response. She does qualify for it, but it's not instant. You have to be on a conditional green card for two years, then on a regular green card(which lasts ten years). We have to wait another year before we can have the conditional aspect of her green card removed. But with USCIS allegedly pausing it, even if we try to get it removed, nothing will move forward, but the clock will keep ticking till it expires.

There are per-nation limits on the number of green card holders that can become citizens every year. Maybe they want to be citizens, but aren't allowed to be?

Meanwhile, a lawyer friend of mine had to advise a client of his not to go home to visit his dying father, because he might not be allowed back in. He's lived in the US for twenty years. He owns a business that employs six US citizens. He won't get to see his father again, and a father won't get to see his eldest son on his deathbed.

So yeah, be smug. Enjoy that.

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Do you have any idea what's involved in an immigrant from a Muslim country becoming a citizen? Without some sense of the requirements, you're assuming he doesn't want to be a citizen, when it's quite possible that he does, but hasn't been able to due to quotas.