How Many Naturalized Citizens Will Vote This Year?

The Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based independent think tank, issued in January of this year a study entitled Spotlight on Naturalization Trends in Advance of the 2008 Elections.  

The study looks at the number of legal immigrants, as well as of unauthorized immigrants legalized under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), who became U.S. citizens through naturalization over the last three decades.

Following are some of the data from and findings of the study.


• Under IRCA, 2.7 million unauthorized immigrants received the status of lawful permanent resident, increasing the pool of foreign-born residents eligible for naturalization.


• Of those, 31% were Latinos, about one quarter of all Latino citizens eligible to vote. 


• Asian and European immigrants have the highest naturalization rates, while Mexican immigrants have one of the lowest.  In 2006, Mexicans made up the largest single block of naturalized citizens, or 12 percent, but immigrants from India, Philippines, China, Vietnam and Korea together represented 25 percent.  


• More than 700,000 lawful permanent residents became US citizens in 2006.

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