

1 In 2016, for example, 54 percent of naturalized citizens voted in the general election compared with 62 percent of native-born citizens. And according to a February analysis by the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA), a coalition of immigrant advocacy organizations, 860,000 new Americans were expected to have naturalized by November before the pandemic brought things to a halt.īut not all eligible voters actually vote, and naturalized Americans have historically trailed native-born Americans at the polls. In February, the Pew Research Center published a report that found that 23.2 million naturalized citizens would be eligible to vote in November’s presidential elections, making up a record 10 percent of the total electorate. Newly naturalized citizens are one of the fastest-growing voting groups in the United States. “I was getting excited and feeling giddy about it,” she told FiveThirtyEight, “but COVID-19 had a different plan.”
#VOTING BLOCS CRACK#
But this year, with the widespread interest in the presidential elections, she thought registrations might crack 40,000. The Houston chapter specifically had an 85 to 90 percent success rate in new voter registrations, for an annual average of 30,000 new voters, according to Benifield. The League had predicted that, in 2020, it would interact with up to 200,000 new citizens and their family members in 1,000 events across the country. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) field offices as well as some federal courthouses. And before the pandemic, these events happened frequently, taking place once, or sometimes twice, each month at U.S.
#VOTING BLOCS REGISTRATION#
The League is the official registration partner for many naturalization ceremonies across the country. The ceremony wouldn’t begin until later in the morning, but Benifield and the 40 or so volunteers from the League of Women Voters (LWV) had arrived early to set up. The occasion was a once-a-month naturalization ceremony, where anywhere between 1,700 to 2,600 legal permanent residents swear a 140-word oath in order to become U.S.

Campbell Education Center, in Houston by 5:30 a.m. On a Wednesday morning in late February, Annie Johnson Benifield was already through the doors of the M.O.
