More people are filing to become citizens in the face of anti-immigration politics
Governor Pete Wilson 1994 Ad for Proposition 187
Kate Linthicum in the Los Angeles Times reports on a spike in naturalizations as a harsh national debate over immigration has encouraged immigrants to seek to become U.S. citizens:
“A t a recent fair at the Long Beach Convention Center, more than 3,000 immigrants got free help filling out citizenship applications and practiced casting ballots at mock voting booths. Events like this almost certainly were not what Republicans intended when they blocked President Obama’s program to shield millions of immigrants from deportation. But the new nationwide push to help more than 8 million legal permanent residents become citizens — and therefore potential voters — is a direct consequence of Republican resistance to Obama administration immigration policies.” The harsh statements about immigrants by Republican presidential candidates has also fueled the increase in citizenship petitions.
In some respects, the increase in naturalizations today is similar to what occurred in California in 1994 after passage of the anti-immigrant measure known as Proposition 187: “The passage of Proposition 187, though it ultimately was declared unconstitutional, is widely credited for helping turn California blue. Republicans faced backlash at the ballot box after organizers registered millions of new Latino voters in the years after the initiative passed, and the state has since transformed into one dominated by Democratic politics.”
KJ