An estimated 3.5 million migrants have become U.S. citizens since the 2020 presidential election and could sway the outcome of elections, including the presidential ballot between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Immigration is a top campaign issue due to record levels of illegal border crossings during President Joe Biden’s administration, which has processed new citizenship applications for the naturalization of legal immigrants much quicker than Trump did during his four years.
Approximately 3.56 million new voting-age adults have become eligible since the 2020 election, according to an analysis from the U.S. Immigration Policy Center based on estimates from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data.
“So many [immigrants] are naturalizing with a particular eagerness to vote, which means that their turnout rates could be higher than normal,” Manuel Pastor, director of the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California, told Newsweek. “Also, they’re naturalizing at a time in which immigration has become a hot-button issue.”
The largest numbers of new naturalizations were in America’s most populous states: California, Florida, New York and Texas—none of which are among the swing states likely to decide the presidential election.
But there were also significant numbers of new naturalizations in battleground states where Trump and Harris are neck and neck to secure the Electoral College votes they need for the presidency.
Pennsylvania, where Biden won with a majority of over 80,000 in 2020 and which could prove decisive this year, added over 70,600 naturalized immigrants from fiscal years 2021 to 2023. Fiscal year 2021 started on October 1, 2020.
Full data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for other swing states were not available, but combined data from fiscal years 2021 and 2022 also showed significant increases.
Read more at Newsweek.com
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