APIA Voting Power

The We Are America coalition of immigrants and their supporters that has formed plans to register 1 MILLION new immigrant voters.

Let's look at the broader picture of the naturalization rates courtesy an article from the Tennessee Dickson Herald: 41% of newly naturalized citizens are from Asian countries.

Hispanics behind on citizenship rolls

Asians have highest percentage attain naturalization
While a raucous public debate swirls around the estimated 12 million, mostly Hispanic, immigrants living illegally in the United States, little attention is paid to the nearly equal number of foreign-born residents who are naturalized U.S. citizens.

These new citizens come mainly from Asia. A smaller percentage of Hispanics go through the naturalization process.

Forty-one percent of the 537,151 new Americans in 2004 — 218,874 — were from Asian countries, according to the federal Office of Immigration Statistics. And while Mexico tops the list of home countries of new U.S. citizens that year, the next five home countries are in Asia: India, Philippines, Vietnam, China and Korea. The same trends hold true over the five-year period ended in 2004.

In Tennessee, slightly more than half of the 2,613 new citizens in 2004 were from Asia. [Asian Americans in Tennessee!!!!]

Compare that with the makeup of illegal immigrants in the United States in 2005, according to the Pew Hispanic Center: 56 percent were Mexican, an additional 22 percent were from the rest of Latin America, while 13 percent were from Asia.

"The question isn't so much why it is that Asians naturalize at a higher rate," said Bill Ong Hing, professor of law and Asian-American studies at University of California, Davis. "It's why Latinos and Mexicans don't naturalize at higher rates."

APIAs have the highest rates of citizenship attainment, which translates into more eligible voters. And we know that once APIAs register to vote, we have the highest turnout ratios.

So, that means turncoat Senators Feinstein, Boxer, Clinton and Schumer who represent the states with the highest number of newly naturalized citizens should pay closer attention to the immigrant voters who they betray.

States with the highest number of immigrants who became new citizens in 2004:
1. California 145,593
2. New York 66,234
3. Florida 43,795
4. Texas 35,417
5. New Jersey 30,291
6. Illinois 29,432
7. Massachusetts 16,263
8. Michigan 14,615
9. Virginia 13,478 - this is how we will swing Virginia blue!
10. Washington 12,668

Actually what I find interesting about this list is that most of these states except Texas and Virginia voted for Kerry in '04 and Gore in '00. (Florida voted for Gore in 2000, dammit!)