Teresa Arieta could no longer hold off on applying for citizenship.
“My life is here. My kids are here. So I’m going to stay,” she said.
Last month, Arieta, a grandmother and immigrant community organizer, became an American citizen. On Tuesday she’ll walk into her neighborhood school for a different reason.
“It feels good, because I’ve been in that school as a parent, as a grandparent, and now I’m going to be as a citizen to vote,” Arieta said.
After 30 years in the U.S. — first under temporary protected status from El Salvador and most recently as a green card holder — Arieta became a citizen two weeks before Election Day. She registered to vote the same day as her oath ceremony, just days before New York’s registration deadline.
"The situation that we are living in right now is more scary. I see the necessity to be a citizen,” she said.
Arieta said she worried about being questioned and detained, pointing to people who she said have been taken into custody even though they were citizens or permanent residents.
“This time is critical for us to get out and vote,” Arieta said.
Her first vote comes at an uncertain moment for roughly 25 million naturalized citizens eligible to vote nationwide – over 170,000 of which gained citizenship this year. A recent poll from the National Partnership for New Americans found that 53% of naturalized voters surveyed feel less secure in their citizenship.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has compiled of alleged noncitizen voters in its hunt to uncover for widespread voter fraud. A recent analysis from UCLA says the list is riddled with errors, including listing naturalized US citizens who are eligible to vote.
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A DOJ spokesperson told Scripps News the department has charged 208 people since the start of the Trump administration and that “many of these defendants falsely swore they were U.S. citizens to register.” Many later lied under oath about it on their naturalization applications, the spokesperson said.
In addition to this list, the Justice Department is planning to send 1000 unarmed federal agents to serve as poll monitors to election sites across the US. Advocates say the presence of federal agents is causing concern.
“They know there’s a lot of confusing information out there about whether or not people can actually vote,” Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, told Scripps News.
Even immigrants who “have done the work” and successfully naturalized, he added, “still are under a lot of pressure and intimidation.”
“It is illegal to intimidate voters, and that includes naturalized voters,” said Nicole Melaku, executive director of the National Partnership for New Americans. “We won’t be intimidated.”
While the Justice Department says monitors won’t include agents from the FBI or ICE, the NAACP on Monday filed an emergency Temporary Restraining Order in its lawsuit to block federal law enforcement agents, including from the Bureau of Prisons, DEA and ATF, from serving as federal election monitors.
"We are taking action to ensure that the path to the ballot box remains free from harassment and intimidation for all voters on Election Day. This Justice Department may want us to be afraid, but that's only because they are afraid of us and the power of our votes,” Kristen Clarke, the general counsel for the NAACP, said in a statement.
A longer road to citizenship
Becoming a citizen is getting more difficult for some immigrants as the federal government adds screening requirements and tougher standards to the naturalization process, advocates say.
“Over the last two years, we’ve seen a steady attack on those with legal status, and that includes naturalized citizens,” Melaku said. Asked whether more naturalized citizens would be voting this year if not for the slowdown, she answered, “Absolutely.”
“There could be several thousand people who would have been eligible to vote this year that are now stuck in backlog and in limbo and maybe even withdrew their applications,” Melaku said. She said processing times have stretched to 18 months and that some oath ceremonies were canceled last year with no word on when they would be rescheduled.
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Turnout overshadows fears
Despite the fears, advocates expect strong participation from immigrant and Latino voters. Melaku said 90% of the naturalized voters her group polled are deeply motivated to vote, and that like their U.S.-born counterparts most are focused on the economy.
New data from Voto Latino shows Latino voters, and young Latinos in particular, are casting a larger share of early ballots than in 2018, 2022 or even 2024.
Miranda said he expects the headline the day after the election to be that Latinos and the rest of the country voted in large numbers.
For Arieta, Tuesday is about more than one ballot.
“To me, being American is a compliment for what I am,” she said, adding that she never forgets her roots and that her culture is part of America, too. Becoming a citizen, she said, gives her more opportunity “to fight for something better.”
“As a citizen I know I have a voice now,” she said. “I can be part of the change.”
