An analysis released Tuesday by the Bipartisan Policy Center found that the narrative of a surge in citizenship applications due to anti-immigrant rhetoric is false and that naturalization applications are consistent with past election years.
According to U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services figures, there have been 440,000 applications for citizenship in fiscal year 2016. During the same months in FY 2012 there were 412,000 applications. An average of 700,000 people have been naturalized annually since 2000 with spikes occurring during election years and when there are political or administrative changes to immigration rules. There was a large spike in FY2007 as the application fee increased from $300 to $595 and congress began debating immigration reform.
Democratic figures argued in a May Washington Post article that Donald Trump’s proposed immigration policies would create a surge of new citizens that would get Hillary Clinton elected.
“A surge in Latino engagement is coming,”Ben Monterroso, executive director of Mi Familia Vota, a group registering Hispanics told the Post. He added, “unsolicited, people tell you that ‘I’m becoming a citizen because I want to vote against Donald Trump’ or ‘I want to vote against the attacks on our community.'”
The Post article referenced an uptick in naturalization applications in the prior months but as seen in the graph below that has occurred off and on for the past two decades.
It is unlikely that people who file for citizenship now would be able to vote in November as there is a long waiting period for the applications to get cleared.