The Independent View: Immigrants Rush to Seek Citizenship and Right to Vote

While protesters are common at Trump campaign rallies, including one in downtown Fort Worth last month, other immigration advocates have moved beyond the name-calling and are participating in efforts help legal immigrants gain citizenship, in part so they can vote.

“Trump is a great incentive for Hispanics to become citizens and vote against that type of thinking — anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-American,” said Juan Hernandez, a Fort Worth political consultant and Co-Founder of the Hispanic Republicans of Texas. “I say that as a Republican.”

This is not controversial. We are not talking about undocumented immigrants. The people who are attending these clinics are people who did it the right way. Rebecca Acuna, Executive Director of the Latino Center for Leadership Development in Dallas.
“The people who are attending these clinics are people who did it the right way.”

Because the voter registration deadline for the Presidential election is Oct. 1, legal immigrants seeking citizenship are up against a clock. It typically takes about six months for the citizenship paperwork to be processed, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Last year, between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, the Dallas field office received 5,304 naturalization applications, an increase of 16.5 percent from the same period in 2014, when the number of applicants was 4,553. “People are paying close attention to what the candidates are saying,” said Sandra Tovar of Fort Worth, DFW coordinator for Mi Familia Vota, a group that is helping Hispanics register to vote.

Nationwide, 27.3 million Hispanics are eligible to vote this year, according to the Pew Research Center. Of those, 1.2 million became citizens between 2012 and 2016.

While immigration reform has long been a big issue among Hispanics, State Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., D-Fort Worth, said Trump’s popularity has served as a wake-up call that they need to vote.

In the past, many resident immigrants from Mexico, legal immigrants with green cards, trusted the U.S. government and felt valued, so they didn’t rush in to apply for citizenship. But now they see co-workers and neighbors supporting Trump and are fearful of what could happen if he becomes President. “The immigrant community’s feelings are hurt,” Romero said, adding that many believe that citizenship will bring added protection for their families.

Hernandez said the Mexican consulates are encouraging immigrants who are U.S. citizens to practice their rights and vote.

Mexican leaders including former President Vicente Fox have also criticized Trump’s plans via social media. Earlier this month, President Enrique Peña Nieto likened Trump to Hitler and Mussolini.

Many immigrants are also displeased that lawmakers, including President Barack Obama, have not passed laws that address immigration reform, Hernandez said.

The second-largest source of Hispanic voter growth is among adult Hispanic immigrants who are in this country legally and become U.S. citizens by naturalization, according to the Pew Research Center. They are angry about a high number of deportations and the handling of Central American children who arrived here unaccompanied. In 2014, thousands of families and unaccompanied children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador arrived at the nation’s southern border. Central Americans cited high levels of crime as why they fled their homelands. And many are worried about the future of Obama's immigration Executive Order, which goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next month.

Obama’s order expanded a program that allows young people who were raised in the United States without status to live and work here temporarily. That program is called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Another program provides temporary protection for an estimated 4.1 million undocumented parents of U.S.-born children or legal immigrants. “We are disappointed with the president because he didn’t promote any of his promises to Hispanics,” Hernandez said.

Proyecto Inmigrante ICS, a immigration counseling service with offices in Fort Worth and Wichita Falls, has citizenship programs year round to help immigrants fill out their paperwork at low cost. In Fort Worth, a citizenship clinic that typically draws about 50 people drew about 100 on March 12, immigration counselor Andy Beltran said.
What I hear is: ‘What if he gets elected? What is going to happen to us? Anael Luébanos, President of the Federación Zacatecana de Fort Worth, Texas

Beltran said many people told her they want to vote in this election because “we don’t want the person who is talking about immigrants a lot to be president of the United States.” Beltran said they are referring to Trump.