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Naturalization Up Among Immigrants
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Early this year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, caused an uproar by dramatically increasing citizenship application fees and toughening citizenship tests. Opponents said the government was throwing up a barrier to legal immigrants to naturalize.
The new fees followed a more intense battle over illegal immigration, as politicians and citizens groups clashed over how to manage an estimated 12 million foreigners who entered the country illegally or who overstayed their visas since 1986.
Last week, two congressmen sought to address the problem of illegal immigration by proposing a temporary guest-worker program that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to remain in the United States if they paid a steep fine, left the country, returned legally and broke no additional law. Opponents said the bill amounts to another amnesty.
The new bill replaced earlier House legislation that sought to strengthen and strictly enforce federal laws targeting illegal immigrants in an effort to encourage them to leave the country. The bill sparked huge marches on behalf of undocumented immigrants before it died last year in a joint House-Senate conference committee.
At the marches, advocates vowed to encourage eligible immigrants to apply for citizenship and register to vote. Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, which advocates permanent residency for illegal immigrants, said the study shows "a response to immigrant bashing.
"I think we're on the cusp of seeing a national transformation," Bhargava said. "There are community organizations day in and day out that are registering people to vote, assisting people to become citizens, and I think it will pay off."
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that seeks to limit immigration, said that the increase is not surprising, and that the impact on immigrant voting will be marginal.
"I'm not sure what real-world political consequences it will have," Krikorian said. "Immigrants are not a monolithic voting bloc. I think it's easy to overplay that. I think this is a development to be applauded but not a political earthquake or anything like that."
