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.
In Arizona, where Biden defeated Trump in 2020 by just over 10,000 votes, over 31,000 citizens were naturalized over the period.
Biden won by less than 12,000 votes in Georgia, where there were over 46,000 naturalizations. There were more than 15,000 naturalizations in Nevada, where he won by fewer than 34,000 votes; over 30,800 in Michigan, where he won by over 150,000 votes; over 37,000 new naturalizations in North Carolina, where Trump won by less than 75,000 votes; and over 11,000 in Wisconsin, which Biden won by nearly 21,000 votes.
FY 2023 DHS data shows about 37 percent of new voters since 2020 come from Asia, 33.5 percent come from North and Central America, and 11 percent come from Africa. The top five countries of origin are Mexico, India, the Philippines, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Approximately 3.5 million immigrants have become U.S. citizens between the 2020 election and the upcoming election on November 5. The growing numbers could potentially alter outcomes in key swing states where slim margins separate Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty
Conservatives have been critical of the Biden administration’s response to illegal crossings for nearly four years, although this has been toughened in recent months.
Although Democratic Party policies are generally seen as more pro-immigration than those of Republicans, it is not clear where the political loyalties of the newly naturalized voters lie.
Pastor said that while some immigrants may dislike Trump’s rhetoric on illegal immigrants, others may view the Democrats‘ border policies as unfair considering that they “went through the proper channels to become naturalized”.
Identifying political proclivities is difficult considering ethnicities, countries of origin, which states they reside in, and the issues that affect individuals and families, pundits say.
“We can’t assume party affiliation, so it depends on how the Harris and Trump campaigns address the issues concerning the new residents in these respective battleground states,” Denny Salas, a Democratic strategist, told Newsweek. “The No. 1 issue has been the economy and inflation.”
T.J. McCormack, a Republican communications specialist, said new citizens would vote more in favor of Trump than Harris.
“In my experience, few people are as frustrated and offended by those who jump into America illegally as legal immigrants and their first-generation American children. … Anyone who has come out the other end of that tunnel resents the living daylights out of anyone who cheats along with the politicians who enable that cheating…like Kamala Harris,” he told Newsweek.
