CHICAGO (By Arian Campo-Flores, Newsweek) May 14, 2006 — Manuel Ortega didn't like what he was hearing. Though the Mexican native has been a legal permanent resident in the United States for 15 years, he grew jittery at all the talk of deportation amid the rancorous national debate on illegal immigration. "Residency can be taken away from one moment to the next," he says. "With citizenship, you can protect yourself." So on a crisp Saturday morning last month, he headed to a citizenship workshop at Saint Pius Church in Chicago. By the time he arrived at 7:30 a.m., the line already stretched for two blocks. Event planners had expected several hundred people to show up; instead, about 1,000 came, forcing organizers to shut the doors at noon. Ortega, 40, finally filed his paperwork after a six-hour wait. It was a first step, he says, "to get more rights and to get the vote."

While the furor over illegal immigration has galvanized the undocumented, it also appears to have stirred up longtime legal residents like Ortega. They're applying in greater numbers to naturalize, or become citizens—an option for people who have had green cards for at least five years. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, naturalization applications in the first three months of the year increased 19 percent over the same period last year. And in March, visitors to the USCIS Web site downloaded a record 162,000 citizenship applications. Some immigrants may be driven by fear, others by a desire for full political participation and still others by a wish to petition for relatives living abroad. The immigration debate that has mobilized them will once again seize center stage this week. Senate leaders have agreed to bring an immigration bill to the floor, and on Monday night President George W. Bush will address the nation on the subject. Aides say he'll continue to plug his favored guest-worker program, but will also emphasize border security and raise the possibility of deploying the National Guard—a proposal that will likely play well with his conservative base.

While immigrant advocates continue to push for reform, they're increasingly trying to energize legal residents, many of whom joined the recent marches. The pool of green-card holders who are eligible for citizenship exceeds 8 million by some estimates—all of them potential voters. "We want to capitalize on that movement energy and translate it into a real political voice for immigrants," says Deepak Bhargava of the Center for Community Change. So last week the newly formed "We Are America Alliance," comprised of Bhargava's group and scores more, announced an initiative to produce 1 million new citizens and voters by Election Day 2006. As part of a so-called Democracy Summer, citizenship schools nationwide will help immigrants with their paperwork, offer civics classes and promote political participation. To kick it all off, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Chicago has proposed a National Citizenship Day on July 1, when he hopes to draw as many as 30,000 applicants across the country.

But enrolling new citizens is no easy task. Many eligible permanent residents choose not to apply, whether because of the cost ($400), lack of English skills or plans to head home someday. To help prod them, some pro-immigrant groups are highlighting the safeguards of citizenship. In new ads by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights—which oversaw the workshop Ortega attended—an announcer intones darkly, "Immigrants are being attacked daily. Protect your family. Become a citizen today." ICIRR also notes that application costs will continue to rise and argues that a revamped citizenship test due to be completed next year will be more difficult (a USCIS spokesman denies that). Fear has motivated immigrants in the past: in the wake of a 1994 ballot initiative in California that stripped away benefits for the undocumented, naturalization surged, reaching a peak of 1 million two years later.

If organizers manage to enlist hundreds of thousands of new citizens who go on to vote, the political impact could be far-reaching. Eligible permanent residents make up sizeable portions of the population in many key swing states—numbering about 600,000 in Florida, for instance. And naturalized citizens—537,000 of whom were minted in 2004—vote at higher rates than the U.S.-born, according to studies by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Still, advocacy groups have repeatedly been disappointed by immigrants who have often failed to flex their political muscle. "Our mission is to make good on the slogan, 'Today we march, tomorrow we vote'," says Chung-Wha Hong of the New York Immigration Coalition. If that happens, maybe the next line Ortega stands in will be the one for the ballot box.