get out the vote
Latinos hurry to be naturalized for November election — to vote against Donald Trump
Donald Trump has bragged that "the Hispanics love me," but more and more Latino immigrants are rushing to naturalize in time to vote in November against Trump, The New York Times reports. "I want to vote so Donald Trump won't win. He doesn't like us," one such immigrant, Hortensia Villegas, said.
Naturalization application numbers tend to rise during presidential years, but some expect to see the normal bump get an extra boost from Trump's harsh words against Mexico and Mexicans. Of 8.8 million legal residents eligible to naturalize, 2.7 million are Mexicans — and the number of naturalization applications leapt by 11 percent in the 2015 fiscal year over the year before, and then 14 percent in the final six months of the year. Advocates told the Times that at the pace they are seeing applications rise, there could be 1 million applicants in 2016.
The Obama administration has helped by making a nonpartisan effort to grow naturalization, although some have raised complaints due to the fact that the majority of Latinos are Democrats. Naturalization drives are indeed being held in states like Colorado, Nevada, and Florida, where competition could be tight in November. "I certainly don't care what party they register with, I just want them to become citizens," director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Leon Rodriguez said.
Still, Trump has not done much to help his case. At a naturalization workshop in Denver, one immigrant, Minerva Guerrero Salazar, spoke up. "Donald Trump never! Never! He has no conscience when he speaks of Latinos," she said. "And he is so rude. I don't know what kind of education his mother gave him."