Nationwide, more immigrants are applying for naturalization in a year when immigration has taken center stage in the presidential campaign. The GOP front runner Donald Trump has mentioned a pledged during several campaign speeches to deport an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. He’s announced many solutions for the issue — one of which would be building a wall — that he would implement as president, accusing the federal government of failing to protect the country.

In response, an influx of immigrants are seeking citizenship. The American Press focused on this topic more in-depth, reporting, “Nationwide, naturalization applications are up 14 percent in the last six months of 2015 compared with the same period in 2014. And the pool of future U.S. citizens is large. Nearly 9 million legal permanent residents, or green-card holders, are eligible to become Americans. Of those, about 4 million are Hispanic.”

“The United States was originally the land of equal opportunity no matter your race,” junior Shannon McBrien said. “For Trump to contradict the original American policy will make our country look shameful.”