To kick off Louisville’s annual WorldFest last week, the Muhammad Ali Center hosted a naturalization ceremony alongside the festivities. Seventy-seven people from 33 countries including Sudan, Guatemala, Canada and Vietnam became United States citizens.
After the ceremony, voting advocates lined the room to encourage the new Americans to register to vote. By the end of the day, more than a third of them did, according to League of Women Voters co-president Gail Henson.
“We want them to have access to the process of decision-making,” Henson said as she watched people fill out voter registration forms. “We want them to have a voice in housing, education, essential services, all those things that make a community great.”
About 179,800 Kentucky residents are immigrants, according to the American Immigration Council . More than 75,000 of them are eligible to vote in the commonwealth.