It comes after a national audit found the citizenship process to be inefficient and needlessly slow, leaving roughly 190,000 people nationwide in the waiting lurch.

In the worst cases, the Wagga's new residents have faced up to 18 months of waiting between passing the national test and being invited to become a citizen.

"Those who arrive by boat seem to have even further delays," said Belinda Crain, manager of the Multicultural Centre.

"It's as if they're being punished for the way they arrived."

In order to qualify for citizenship, new arrivals must have lived in the country for longer than four years. 

An application process after which is intended to determine the legitimacy of their identity, before they may be able to complete the national citizenship test. 

Once all of these key points have been satisfied, the new migrants are invited to be sworn in as Australian citizens.  

For people who have arrived without their families, it is only once they are a citizen that they will be able to sponsor their families to join them.

"Some of them haven't seen there children in six to 10 years, they've completely grown up without them," said new migrant case worker Daniel Harris.

"We have a lot of broken hearts in our community and a lot of sad stories to tell."

Many have been forced to leave their families in dangerous circumstances for years or even decades at a time before they are granted passage to reunite in Australia.

It has left many with extended feelings of statelessness.

"They live in constant fear of what will happen to their family, but they are unable to do anything about it," said Mr Harris.

"I know one guy who lost his daughter in the time he was waiting for his citizenship to come through," he said.

"It was because of something simple, where she was there wasn't access to medicine because they are non-citizens in there home country."

Mr Harris and Ms Crain agree that for those who are trying to rebuild their lives in a new country, the delays can be incredibly demoralising.

"Families are being re-traumatised, you can hear it in their voices. They come in asking if we've heard anything and they're just deflated."

"When they ring up [the Department of Home Affairs], they just told to sit there and wait."

Delays of this nature have only become commonplace since 2017. 

Prior to then, the Multicultural Council says, new arrivals waited only up to three months to become a citizen after successfully completing their entrance exam.

"The last two years [the process] has started to take over 12 months," said Ms Crain.

"It's doubled the time frame in this region.

"Once people have met all the requirements, once they have been assessed as able to be an Australian, then the next part of the process should be very quick, they should be made an Australian citizen."