The Guardian
By Daniel Hernandez
January 26, 2016
Donald
Trump’s scathing rhetoric about Latin American immigrants is
galvanizing a movement in the community to pursue American citizenship
and register in key battleground
states.
In
what campaigners are calling a “naturalization blitz”, workshops are
being hosted across the country to facilitate Hispanic immigrants who
are legal, permanent residents
and will only qualify to vote in the 2016 presidential election if they
upgrade their immigration status.
Citizenship
clinics will take place in Nevada, Colorado, Texas and California later
this month, with other states expected to host classes in February and
early March
in order to make the citizenship deadline required to vote in November.
The Republican frontrunner’s hostile remarks about Latino immigrants is driving people to the workshops.
This
Saturday, 300 legal permanent residents are set to attend one of the
workshops in Las Vegas, where they will be provided with naturalization paperwork, lawyers will
offer on-site counsel and, in some cases, financial aid will be made
available to help cover the $680 application fee.
Trump,
who has branded Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals, and has
made the construction of a wall along the southern US border a pillar of
his campaign for the
White House, is increasingly viewed as the likely Republican candidate
for 2016. His anti-immigrant statements have received even more coverage
in Spanish-language media than they did in English-language press.
“Our
messaging will be very sharply tied to the political moment, urging
immigrants and Latinos to respond to hate with political action and
power,” said Maria Ponce of
iAmerica Action, an immigrant rights campaign sponsored by the Service
Employees International Union.
Several
labor unions and advocacy groups are collaborating on the project. In
Las Vegas, organizers also intend to hold mock caucuses to educate new
voters on the state’s
complicated primary process. Nevada is the first early voting state to
feature a large Latino population, and that group is eager to make
itself known.
“This
is a big deal,” said Jocelyn Sida of Mi Familia Vota, a partner in the
Nevada event. “We as Latinos are always being told that we’re taking
jobs or we’re anchor
babies, and all these things are very hurtful. It’s getting to the
point where folks are frustrated with that type of rhetoric. They
realize the only way they can stop this is by getting involved
civically.”
Efforts
to increase minority participation in swing state elections are nothing
new. Nevada’s powerful Culinary Union has been holding such events for
its 57,000 members
and their families since 2001. Yet never before has there been a
galvanizing figure of the bogeyman variety quite like Trump.
“It’s
shameful,” said Maria Polanco, a Honduran woman pursing citizenship after 26 years in the US. “Those comments hurt us a lot. We are not
perfect, but the majority
of us are not what Donald Trump says. We came looking for better
opportunities for us and our kids. My great pride is that my daughter
graduated from college – I don’t think she could’ve done that in my
country.”
Advocates
say their citizenship events in late 2015 attracted droves of people
like Polanco who have been eligible to apply for citizenship for
decades, yet only felt
compelled to do so now.
For
Polanco and her friends, pricey and time-consuming English classes have
always made the naturalization process seem too daunting. Now, she
said, in light of the ongoing
Central American child migrant crisis, as well as promises on the right
to “deport all the illegals”, Polanco feels guilty to have waited so
long to pursue the right to vote.
“Lots of people who for various reasons have not gotten their citizenship are now at the point where they will,” she added.
There
are 8.8 million legal permanent residents in the US, according to the
Department of Homeland Security, and 90,000 of them are in the swing
state of Nevada. David
Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada-Las
Vegas, said in terms of partisanship, what is happening is a boon to
Democrats.
“One
of the biggest incubators of political attitudes is family, with
children at least initially following the lead of their parents,” Damore
said. “This dynamic is missing
for many immigrants, and as a consequence their political socialization
is shaped by the current political environment.”
Damore
noted that “immigrants are hearing a welcoming message from one party
and hostile rhetoric from the other, and this can have profound
long-term consequences in
terms of partisan identification and voting behavior”.
His
research has shown that anti-immigrant messaging and policies can
increase not only the rates of political participation among Latinos,
but also rates of naturalization.
“And naturalized Latinos often vote at a higher rate than native born
Latinos,” he added.
Polanco
is inclined to support Hillary Clinton, she said, but her daughter (who
is also a naturalized citizen) is encouraging her to support Bernie
Sanders. For now, the
matriarch remains undecided. She is only certain that she won’t vote
for a Republican.
“It’s
not just the Donald Trump situation,” said Sida of Mi Familia Vota.
“Mostly, it’s just not wanting to be suppressed anymore. They want to
elect people who are going
to propose a good pathway to citizenship, a good pathway for education
and healthcare, a good pathway for a better life here in America. They
want to have that voice.”
In
February and March, citizenship clinics are planned for 15 states,
including Florida and Nevada. Regional news coverage from Telemundo and
Univision has already helped
market the effort, and beneficiaries of Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program are infusing energy as volunteers
in hopes that the new citizens will support politicians sympathetic to
immigrant causes.
“It’s
a beautiful thing to see them go through,” said Sida. “They fill out
their form, they submit it, they go ahead and take the test. Then they
get sworn in and bam,
they register and they vote, all in a year.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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