More Latinos Seek Citizenship to Vote Against Trump

By JULIA PRESTON MARCH 7, 2016
The New York Times


DENVER — Donald J. Trump’s harsh campaign language against Mexican
immigrants has helped him win a substantial delegate lead in the
Republican primaries, but it is also mobilizing a different set of
likely voters — six in the family of Hortensia Villegas alone.

A legal immigrant from Mexico, Ms. Villegas is a mother of two who has
been living in the United States for nearly a decade but never felt
compelled to become a citizen. But as Mr. Trump has surged toward the
Republican nomination, Ms. Villegas — along with her sister, her parents
and her husband’s parents — has joined a rush by many Latino immigrants
to naturalize in time to vote in November.

“I want to vote so Donald Trump won’t win,� said Ms. Villegas, 32, one
of several hundred legal residents, mostly Mexicans, who crowded one
recent Saturday into a Denver union hall. Volunteers helped them fill
out applications for citizenship, which this year are taking about five
months for federal officials to approve. “He doesn’t like us,� she said.

Over all, naturalization applications increased by 11 percent in the
2015 fiscal year over the year before, and jumped 14 percent during the
six months ending in January, according to federal figures. The pace is
picking up by the week, advocates say, and they estimate applications
could approach one million in 2016, about 200,000 more than the average
in recent years.

“A lot of people are opening their eyes because of all the negative
stuff Donald Trump has brought,� said Ms. Villegas’s husband, Miguel
GarfÃ*o, 30, who was born and raised in Colorado and came to the workshop
here to help his wife and other family members become citizens. His
parents came from Mexico in the 1980s and worked hard all their lives,
he said, helping him create a construction company in Denver that now
employs 18 people.

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