NEW YORK: Enraged by the Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s attacks against immigrants, millions of Hispanic legal residents have started applying for citizenship so that they can vote against him.

In the past they neglected to apply for naturalisation to be eligible to vote, but all that changed in this election year where the language being used by the candidates is not in favour of immigrants.

Although there are far more Latinos (immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Haiti, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, etc) living in America, they do not enjoy the same importance during elections as their African-American compatriots. The main reason for it is that they do not turn out to vote.

According to newspaper polls, the Latinos want to vote against Mr Trump who has abused them.

A report in the New York magazine said several of the nation’s leading Latino community groups have made increasing political engagement among these Americans a top priority for years. But it’s possible that none have done more for the cause of Hispanic-American enfranchisement than Donald J. Trump. His loose “rhetoric” has encouraged them to consider going to vote in large numbers.

The New York Times reported that naturalisation applications increased by 11 per cent in 2015, jumping 14pc in the final six months of the year, after Trump announced his candidacy. Although naturalisation rates tend to get a re-election-year boost, 2015 far outstripped 2011, the year before the 2012 elections.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2016