Newly naturalized citizens could theoretically swing the election: Report
The number of foreign nationals in the U.S. currently eligible for naturalization outnumbers the 2020 presidential margin of victory in five battleground states.
A report released by the American Immigration Council (AIC) on Thursday concluded that if some or all of the country’s 7.4 million not-yet-naturalized-but-eligible residents got their citizenship before November, they could swing the 2024 election.
That’s unlikely to happen, as the naturalization process for eligible foreign nationals takes roughly eight months from application to receiving a certificate of citizenship.
But the report highlights the disconnect between the size of immigrant communities, their economic impact and their political power.
It says immigrants make up 13.8 percent of the U.S. population, but only 10 percent of eligible voters.
And potential citizens could in theory sway both battleground states and a couple of key red ones.
The researchers found that 574,800 immigrants in Florida are likely eligible to naturalize, while former President Trump’s margin of victory there was 371,686 votes.
In Texas, the naturalization-eligible population is estimated at 789,500, and the 2020 presidential margin of victory was 631,221.
The margin of victory in some battleground states pales in comparison to the number of potential new voters.
In Arizona, 164,000 people can apply for citizenship, and the vote difference was 10,457, about a 16-to-1 ratio; in Georgia, the ratio is about 13-to-1.
Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin all show up on the list, with naturalization-eligible resident to 2020 victory margin ratios of around 8-to-1, 3-to-1, 2-to-1, and 5-to-2, respectively.
The report also found that immigrants paid 16.2 percent of all taxes paid by U.S. households in 2022, despite having less political representation.
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