With their right hand in the air and Old Glory in the other, emotions swelled when 30 immigrants took a solemn oath to become U.S. citizens.
The men and women, representing nearly two dozen countries from around the world, gathered for a naturalization ceremony at Lincoln-West School of Global Studies on Cleveland’s West Side.
At every naturalization ceremony there's a chance to complete the paperwork needed to cast a ballot in an upcoming election. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of immigrant-eligible voters has increased steadily over the past 20 years.That's 23.8 million people. The majority are Hispanic and Asian, according to Colares."The percent of Hispanics and Asians that actually end up voting among the foreign-born Americans is higher than the percentage of Hispanics and Asians who are U.S. born," said Colares.
"The other thing that we see is with language issues some of them aren't on top of local issues that are going on," said Wick."The conversations that people have in the community, I think that's something that really helps bridge the gap," said Wick.