Obama Turning Immigrants into Democrats

President Obama has less than one year left in office, but before he leaves the White House he is going to use the immigrant population to mint as many new Democratic voters as he can.

The project is being spearheaded by the Obama administration’s Task Force on New Americans, which is meeting with officials in dozens of locales to try to naturalize more immigrants. Most new American citizens vote Democratic.

At the end of January, members of the task force met in Los Angeles with mayor Eric Garcetti, local business owners and pro-immigrant groups to discuss various ways of encouraging and helping immigrants become U.S. citizens.

The meeting, which was held in private and lasted more than four hours, was the first stop in a national tour by the task force to promote its “Building Welcoming Communities” (BWCC) and “‘Stand Stronger’ Citizenship Awareness” campaigns, launched in September 2015.

“Starting in California is a perfect kickoff from our perspective,” said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, senior deputy director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. L.A.’s citizenship program, “Step Forward LA,” which has so far helped 45,000 immigrants on their path to citizenship, is a model of success for the Obama administration and the main reason the Task Force began its tour in that city.

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The BWCC’s stated goal is to “encourage local communities to engage in local immigrant integration efforts,” specifically in the area of “civic, economic and linguistic integration.” This includes “encouraging immigrants … to fully participate in civic life by … promoting awareness of the importance of citizenship, (and) preparing those eligible for naturalization.”

The initiative was directly modeled on and launched in partnership with the nonprofit Welcoming America, a pro-immigrant group that seeks to force Americans to accept mass immigration.

“All of the work that we do is around trying to get people to be more receptive to immigrants,” said David Lubell, Welcoming America’s founder, in a promotional video. “We’re trying to change the sign on the door to say … ‘please come in.’”

Forty-seven cities and counties have signed up to participate in BWCC, and the White House hopes to bribe more to do so — offering “information on funding opportunities as well as the opportunity to build capacity for future funding opportunities,” not to mention White House photo-ops for local politicians who back the program.

While encouraging immigrants to become voters is an important part of BWCC, it is the fundamental mission of the “Stand Stronger” campaign. It exists to encourage the nearly nine million “eligible immigrants to take an important step in their American journey and commit to citizenship,” according to a White House fact sheet. The same fact sheet tellingly lists BWCC as part of “Stand Stronger,” though language on the Task Force’s website suggests they are unrelated initiatives.

“Stand Stronger” follows a two-prong strategy in which the Obama administration partners with local governments and nonprofits to encourage immigrants to apply for citizenship while easing the process of obtaining citizenship at the federal level.

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The initiative has turned U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) into a veritable welcoming committee for immigrants. As part of the initiative, USCIS has poured money into creating a “citizenship class locator” app and expanding a PSA campaign to advertise the naturalization process — as well as providing an additional $10 million in grants to 40 nonprofits that “prepare legal permanent residents for citizenship.”

USCIS also partnered with eight municipalities to distribute information promoting the U.S. citizenship and the naturalization process by establishing “citizenship corners” in public libraries. A key strategy of Obama’s USCIS is to turn local librarians into citizenship advocates. As part of its outreach program, USCIS also partnered with the Institute of Museum and Library Services to ensure librarians “have the necessary tools to refer their customers to accurate and reliable sources of information on immigration-related topics.”

Put simply, Obama’s Task Force on New Americans is a force tasked with creating as many new Americans as possible, new Americans that will likely vote Democrat. It was created at the end of 2014, less than two years before a crucial national election, and its flagship initiatives were launched in September 2015, just as primary season began to heat up.

“I am excited to vote in my first presidential election,” said former baseball player and Presidential Ambassador for Citizenship and Naturalization Fernando Valenzuela.

The DNC is excited, too.