More Bay Area immigrants seeing value of citizenship

43% of the immigrants in the Bay Area have become citizens. They want to be able to use all their rights, such as voting. DP

Region sees sharpest rise in naturalized foreign-born citizens
By Ryan Sholin, STAFF WRITER

InsideBayArea.com: In 1999, the government of Vietnam finally let Tuan Nguyen leave his homeland. When he arrived in the Bay Area, where his wife and son had been living without him for seven years, he wanted to file for citizenship as soon as he could.

"Becoming a citizen is like becoming a family member," Nguyen said. "It's more secure than if you are a guest."
According to U.S. census data released today, the number of naturalized foreign-born citizens in California increased by 4 percent between 2000 and 2005. Now, 43 percent of immigrants count themselves as citizens, up from
39 percent in 2000.

The Bay Area outpaced the statewide increases, led by an 8 percent jump in Santa Clara County and a 7 percent rise in Alameda County. The 2005 census data does not include some group housing situations, such as jails, institutions and military barracks. Experts said the increase could be largely attributed to changes in U.S. immigration policy that have made legal permanent residents eager to become citizens with a full slate of rights.

"I've done more naturalization cases in the last year than the prior 10 years of practicing," said Randall Caudle, a San Francisco immigration lawyer. "People are scared of what could be coming out of Congress."

Caudle, a former president of the Santa Clara Valley chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said legal permanent residents are feeling vulnerable as towns across the country penalize employers and workers for their relationships with illegal immigrants.

"They're tired of hearing anti-immigration rhetoric from a lot of these politicians," he said.
Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California, said immigrants think of citizenship as a "self-defense document."

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