Latinos nearly half of new U.S. citizens in 2008

The National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) reports that Latinos made up nearly half of the more than 1 million people who became U.S. citizens last year.

According to the organization, the number of Latinos who became Americans in fiscal year 2008 more than doubled over the previous year, to 461,317.

That's nearly half of the record 1,046,539 new citizens overall in 2008, a 58% increase from 2007,  according to the Associated Press.

NALEO Educational Fund Executive Director Arturo Vargas said the 2008 elections that put Barack Obama in the White House boosted efforts by Latinos to acquire the right to vote.

“In 2007, thousands of Latino newcomers applied for U.S. citizenship because they wanted to make their voices heard in our nation’s democracy," he said in an NALEO statement.

According to NALEO's analysis of figures recently released by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS), Mexico was the leading country of birth of people becoming citizens in 2008 (231,815), and one out of five new U.S. citizens was from Mexico (22%).

The number of Mexican-born naturalized citizens increased by 90% between 2007 and 2008, while the number of new citizens from Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala more than doubled during the same period.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Comments

[darlene]

When will anyone get it big business and construction and farming is the reason they come for the jobs .
Many poor cant get access to basic education, much less college. this group is no different.
UNTIL WE START HEAVILY FINING THE BUSINESSES WHO DONT PAY TAXES AND SSI AND BENEFITS AND PAY LOWER WAGES AND DUMP THE INJURED WORKERS on the over burdened emergency rooms. WE WILL HAVE A PROBLEM..
Go to the problem -not the symptom. for a cure.

[Yawn]

“In 2007, thousands of Latino newcomers applied for U.S. citizenship because they wanted to make their voices heard in our nation’s democracy"...

OR, the crackdown on illegal immigration was FINALLY starting to happen and they knew they'd better do it or risk deportation.

[Dina]

Louie,

I'm a dark haired dark skinned Latina.

When Illegal people flood a nieghbor hood it becomes a crime ridden ghetto. Go to Santa Ana, Anaheim and San Juan Capistrano and walk around. I don'think this is the better life they were thinking of. It is more of the same.

The essay is unecessary.

[Louie Davis]

I love it when I read the comments made about people who are Mexicans. Mexicans are not the only Latin American immigrants that arrive in the U.S. illegally.

As a white American male who grew up in the South West I have always heard several times of the fear of the "Reconquista" by those who are not Latino. But American Hispanics or American Latinos have no desire to fulfill this nightmarish dream that my fellow white Americans fear.

On a comment made on this article by someone by the name of Dina she states that "the US doesn't review applications to see which applicants are the most skilled. It arbitrarily gives out green cards to those randomly selected in a lottery." Last time I checked the most popular reason for immigrants coming to the U.S. was because they were unhappy with their socio-economic status at their own country. Why then would she continuously refer to immigrants only from Europe and Asia who would like to come to the U.S. as "highly educated and skilled." Obviously this person is making it seem like ONLY a flock of foreign born PhD graduates are racing to America from everywhere in the world except Mexico. Not all immigrants from Latin America have PhDs but neither are all from France, England, Germany, or Canada.

Yes yes Latinos are expanding and are everywhere I turn nowadays there’s no denying that but is that why you hate them? Is it because they are now becoming the majority of your neighborhood? Is it because you are intimidated? Think long and hard. So why doesn't this guy just pull up her pants and say what she wants to say. Stop beating the bush and say that you despise anyone who is not a white of European ancestry.

I love America it is the greatest country on earth. Yet the majority of us who live in largely white populated areas fear when African Americans and Latino Americans start to move in, instead of embracing another culture we push it away because we are afraid of it or afraid of losing our own.
One more thing before I go. I am proud to be an American and being American carries responsibilities to help other Americans. If you love my country as much as I do then what have you done for your country? Have you served our armed forces? Do you have enough dignity to donate to charities or volunteer to help the needy and/or the poor in some way? After all being proud to be an American means being proud of our people and our achievements. We are made up of AMERICANS, this includes Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, etc. And if we dont help each other out then we will only restrain ourselves from success.

[Dina]

We want the legal immigrants. They play by the rules.

[Benjamin]

Any Mexican who wants can freely come into this country. However, the playing field is very different for anyone else. Millions of Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, other Asians, East Europeans, Africans, South Americans and Western Europeans would also like to be able to live in the United States. They generally play by the rules, and the rules exclude them.

My girlfriend, whom I met while studying abroad, had to apply a number of times to gain a student visa from Eastern Europe. Soon, it will run out and she will be forced to leave the country. I will go with her. I have a number of friends who are now married to spouses from Western Europe. The difficulty of getting a green card for their own wives has forced these highly educated, highly skilled people to leave the United States.

Many of those who want to immigrate to the US legally from countries that are not Mexico are highly educated and skilled, but for them there is no way to enter the US. The best way to get a green card is through a completely random lottery. That's right, the US doesn't review applications to see which applicants are the most skilled. It arbitrarily gives out green cards to those randomly selected in a lottery.

Until very recently, Russians were excluded from that lottery altogether, making it nearly impossible for them to immigrate. To this day, applying for a simple tourist visa is an extremely daunting endeavor for Russians who must prove that they do not pose an immigration risk before getting a tourist visa. Proving this is difficult for anyone who doesn't own property or have a family in Russia, so young people find it impossible to come to the US on vacation.

So while entering the United States, even just on vacation, is not a reality for millions of highly educated people around the world, any Mexican can come in. It creates great animus against the US and its hypocrisy for Indians, Chinese, Russians, etc. The system is unfair and broken, and continuing to let in Mexicans but virtually nobody else is Kafkaesque.

Moreover, it's against this country's economic interests. We send home Chinese PhDs and Indian PhDs. So they can do what? Start high-tech companies back home? The highest skilled workers are sent packing -- which will create tomorrow's economic competition. Meanwhile, we play host to up to 20 million unskilled Mexican illegal immigrants who often don't speak English.

I don't know how America will compete in the 21st century if measures aren't taken to put a greater emphasis on bringing in skilled, educated immigrants who will start business and make US firms more innovative.

As the NY Times has reported, many second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans require expensive remedial tutoring in school, while only 15% of Latino immigrants go to college (vs. nearly 40% for the general population). This is a trend that exists only in Latino immigrant communities, as opposed to Asian, because we allow such a large number of unskilled Mexican immigrants to stay in the US that they are able to live in entirely Spanish-speaking communities and not assimilate or strive to achieve "mainstream" success. In order to be a 21st-century global power, we need more educated, not less educated, citizens and immigrants. I genuinely fear that our policies with Mexican immigrants will make us into a 2nd-rate economic power by leaving us a less-educated workforce than we currently have.

What can be done? Firstly, the law must be respected, and illegal immigrants must be deported. Secondly, a need will always exist for low-paid workers, and immigrants will always be needed to fill it. The number of visas for non-Mexicans must be expanded dramatically, and the border must be enforced to prevent further illegal immigration. Oddly, Congress is doing the opposite in banning banks receiving TARP dollars from hiring high-skilled foreign workers. This is economic suicide. We need to realize that educated foreigners may compete with more Americans for jobs, but they also create new jobs. Allowing the country to have a shadow population of illegal, under-educated Mexican workers will turn us into a political, social and economic basket case, and it leaves me wondering if a move to Europe would be better for my economic future. The US should be a melting pot, but the last thing 99% of its citizens want is a United States of Mexico.

[Richard Long]

Great. The Reconquista is complete.