New report finds Latino naturalization driven by interest in civic participation; efficacy of ya es hora ¡CIUDADANIA! campaign
New citizens are in large electoral states and cite voting as reason to take oath
WASHINGTON D.C. - Despite a dramatic increase in naturalization application fees in the midst of the recession, an independent study of the ya es hora ¡Ciudadanía! (It's Time, Citizenship!) campaign released today finds Latinos leading the way in new citizenship applications and shifting the country's electoral landscape along the way. The ya es hora ¡Ciudadanía! (Citizenship! It's Time) campaign was launched as the action-oriented follow-up to the mass immigrant mobilizations of 2006, and seeks to both mobilize and directly assist eligible legal permanent residents with the citizenship process.
The study, Catalysts and Barriers to Attaining Citizenship: An Analysis of ya es hora ¡CIUDADANIA!, quantifies the successes of the groundbreaking and ongoing ya es hora civic engagement campaign. It analyzes multi-year data from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on the number of naturalizations in different metropolitan areas, and compares them to the presence of the ya es hora campaign via local events and media promotion. The study finds that metropolitan areas where the ya es hora campaign was present had higher levels of growth in Latino naturalization applications than areas with no campaign presence; of the top 50 metropolitan areas for naturalization, nearly half saw the number of Latino naturalizations double in the period following the campaign's launch (2007 to 2008), over the period from 2003 to 2006.
Between 2003 and 2006, there were only five metropolitan areas where Latinos were the majority of those naturalized, but within a matter of just two years, the number jumped to 11. This was due in part to the ya es hora campaign and to the motivation stirred by anti-immigrant sentiment and the marches. The 11 metropolitan areas are: Phoenix, Arizona; Los Angeles, San Diego, Ventura, Riverside and Fresno in California; Miami, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; and El Paso, San Antonio, and Houston in Texas.
"As these new Americans register to vote in record numbers and become more engaged in our nation's political life, we will undoubtedly see Latino voters playing a greater role in electing officials and shaping policy on the urgent issues facing our nation today," said Janet Murguía, president and CEO of NCLR (National Council of La Raza).
The study also includes a survey of over 823 Latinos who attended campaign citizenship events, in which 1 in 4 cited their primary motivation for becoming a citizen as being "able to vote." Another 22 percent cited "legal, political, or civil rights" as their reason, meaning about half of the respondents sought citizenship to defend or exercise their rights.
"These figures confirm to us that coordinated civic engagement efforts such as the ya es hora campaign will continue to make a difference in the future," said Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the NALEO Educational Fund. "Although there may be challenges along the way, the Latino community continues to show its commitment and desire to overcome hurdles in order become full participants in the American political process."
The ya es hora campaign continues in 2010, with an aggressive media outreach effort from the campaign's Spanish-language media partners, including public service announcements, advertisements, and promotion of the campaign's toll-free bilingual hotline, (888) VE-Y-VOTA and website, www.yaeshora.info. A series of nationally coordinated citizenship workshops are under way this month in honor of National Citizenship Day in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, New York, Texas and Virginia (for a full calendar, please click here), and the ya es hora ¡Ve y Vota! campaign to promote voter registration and participation is underway.
"The Latino community understands that citizenship is the first step to full civic engagement. The next step is exercising their right to vote - and we expect our community to do just that, this November 2," said Ben Monterroso, Executive Director of Mi Familia Vota Education Fund.