Republicans are super excited about their success so far in blocking President Obama's executive actions on immigration, which would provide deportation relief and work permits for up to five million undocumented immigrants through two programs: Deferred Action for Parenthood Accountability (DAPA) and an expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Now, a new study from the Center for American Progress shows just how many 2016 voters will be affected by their parents' inability to obtain those protections—1.5 million U.S. citizens.
We estimate that 6.3 million U.S. citizens live in the same household as a DAPA-eligible relative. More than 5.3 million of these citizen family members are the children of those eligible for DAPA, and about 1 million are their spouses and other relatives. By 2016, 1.5 million of these 6.3 million citizen relatives will be eligible voters, and by 2020, that figure will rise to 2.25 million as additional children and family members reach voting age.
That's right, GOP, gloat all you want about your senseless blockage of the immigration actions. Griselda Nevarez takes a look at how that's going to work out for you in some battleground states:
One of those states is Florida, where President Obama won by about 74,000 votes in 2012.
Next year, DAPA-affected voters may cast nearly 60,000 votes in the state. And by 2020, that number will rise to about 85,000, exceeding Obama's 2012 margin of victory, according to the report.
Five other battleground states where DAPA-affected voters could have a big impact in the 2016 election are Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia.
And that's not just going to affect the presidential race, it will also be at play in statewide U.S. Senate races. Just a guess that these 1.5 million voters will be particularly motivated to get to the polls, courtesy of the GOP’s vigorous anti-immigrant campaign.