Issues Start Rush to Citizenship by Hispanics

Spurred by the widespread crackdown on illegal immigration and by the contentious tone of the national immigration debate, Latinos are gearing up for Tuesday’s voting with an eye toward making Hispanics a decisive voting bloc nationwide in November.After decades of relatively low Hispanic electoral participation, last year more than a million legal Latino immigrants applied to become citizens, with many saying they had done so to be able to vote. Since then, newly naturalized Hispanic-Americans and citizens since birth have turned out at voter registration fairs and political discussion groups, and pressed relatives to register.

Last week’s primary in Florida, the first state with a big Hispanic population to vote, gave a demonstration of their potential clout. Hispanic voters, who were 12 percent of those voting — a strong turnout for a primary — handed the decisive edge in the Republican contest to Senator John McCain of Arizona over Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, according to exit polls by Edison/Mitofsky.”*

*From: www.nytimes.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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