Federal government hastily processing new citizenship requests is ‘reshaping the electorate:’ report
The New York Times reported on research claiming that groups of immigrants that have “historically leaned Democratic” are being granted citizenship and voting rights at the fastest rate since the Trump Administration.
Chaos at America’s southern border has been one of the key topics in recent years, including speculation about whether the Democratic Party has used immigration to gain voters.
Earlier in August, past comments from Kamala Harris’ 2019 campaign website came to light, having linked to a study touting what it called the electoral benefits of not deporting some illegal immigrants, saying that the policy “could provide sizable contributions to the margin of victory in swing states.”
The Times published a report on Monday also discussing the potential electoral implications of immigration in an article titled, “Immigrants Are Becoming U.S. Citizens at Fastest Clip in Years.”
Immigration and border security has remained one of the most significant polices that may influence voters in deciding between former President Trump or Vice President Harris this November. (Photographer: Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Photographer: Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The federal government is processing citizenship requests at the fastest clip in a decade, moving rapidly through a backlog that built up during the Trump administration and the coronavirus pandemic,” The Times reported. “At ceremonies in courthouses, convention centers and sports arenas across the country, thousands of immigrants are becoming new Americans every week — and becoming eligible to vote in time for the presidential election this fall.”
The report quotes an executive of an immigration assistance organization about how naturalization of immigrants may be “reshaping the electorate” shortly before the 2024 election.
“The surge in naturalization efficiency isn’t just about clearing backlogs; it’s potentially reshaping the electorate, merely months before a pivotal election,” Xiao Wang, chief executive of immigration assistance organization Boundless, said. The Times described the organization as “a company that uses government data to analyze immigration trends and that offers services to immigrants who seek professional help in navigating the application process.”
Wang added that “every citizenship application could be a vote that decides Senate seats or even the presidency.”
The Times noted numerous ways in which the Biden Administration worked to “to dial back his predecessor’s hard-line immigration agenda.”
“At under five months, application processing speed is now on a par with 2013 and 2014. About 3.3 million immigrants have become citizens during President Biden’s time in office, with less than two months to go before the close of the 2024 fiscal year,” The Times wrote. “After taking office in 2021, Mr. Biden issued an executive order that sought to dial back his predecessor’s hard-line immigration agenda and ‘restore faith’ in the legal immigration system. Among other steps, the order called for action to ‘substantially reduce current naturalization processing times’ with the goal of strengthening integration of new Americans.”
Ranked choice voting (RCV) comes in multiple forms and is used in a wide variety of states and localities around the U.S. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images)
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According to the Times, the Biden-Harris administration sought to reduce the backlog of pending citizenship applications by using new technology and additional workers. The backlog was due to the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and the COVID-19 pandemic.
This slowing of the citizenship process, the Times wrote, impacted the 2020 election.
“Intent on curbing legal immigration, the Trump administration conducted lengthier reviews of naturalization applications. The processing time roughly doubled to about 10 months during Mr. Trump’s tenure,” the Times reported. “The bottleneck prevented some 300,000 prospective citizens from naturalizing in time to vote in the 2020 election, according to estimates by Boundless.”
The article cited research claiming that many of the major demographics of immigrants tend to vote for the Democratic Party.
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“Some nine million green-card holders are currently eligible to become U.S. citizens, according to the latest official data. Naturalized Latinos, who make up the largest share of the new citizens, have historically leaned Democratic, as have naturalized Asians and Africans, according to Louis DeSipio, a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine, who studies voter behavior,” the Times reported.
Tom Wong, a political scientist at the university who led the study was quoted saying, “The American electorate is as diverse as it has ever been, and much of that has been fueled by newly naturalized citizen voters, who are making up an increasingly large share of the electorate.”
Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Cameron Cawthorne contributed to this report.
