Open borders advocates – as well as the Mexican government – vowed to create a huge surge of new citizens who entered the U.S. legally so they could register to vote and cast their ballots against Donald Trump.

How's that working out for you guys?

Washington Times:

There’s little question that Mr. Trump’s outsized rhetoric has angered Hispanic activists overall, and Mexican immigrants in particular. But applications for citizenship are up just 6.6 percent compared to the same period in 2012, according to the latest data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and actual approvals are down slightly.

Groups say the numbers don’t jibe with the intensity they’re detecting when they hold citizenship workshops, and they’re hoping when all is said and done, the numbers will be higher.

“I certainly don’t have a crystal ball but what we’ve seen on the ground is that there’s strong anecdotal evidence that suggests people are turning out in bigger numbers this year,” said Tara Raghuveer, deputy director at the National Partnership for New Americans, which is leading a push for naturalizations.

“We saw unprecedented turnout at our events across the country We feel that the effect of the political climate is real and will have real effects on the naturalization numbers,” she said.

Nearly 9 million people in the country are eligible for citizenship but haven’t yet applied, providing a deep bench for the activists to target.

Of those eligible, about one-third are Mexican — a pool that activists said are particularly enraged at Mr. Trump, after he kicked off his campaign last June by saying Mexico sends rapists and other bad elements of its society to the U.S.

Mr. Trump has also vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and force the Mexican government to cough up the money for it. And more recently he has called a U.S. judge hearing a case on Trump University biased because of the judge’s Mexican heritage — a claim that even fellow Republicans have deemed “racist.”

Hispanic-rights groups insisted voters will punish Mr. Trump for his attacks, and anecdotes abound of Hispanic voters saying they’re eager to send a message to him.

But the latest controversy may not end up mattering much, at least when it comes to pushing immigrants to become citizens. That’s because USCIS says it generally takes at least five months to process a citizenship application, and with the election slightly less than five months away, the unofficial cut-off date is already gone.

The lack of new Hispanic citizens to "send a message" to Trump obscures the fact that recent polls show Trump getting more Hispanic support than Romney.  So even if there was a surge in new citizen voting, nowhere near all of them would be anti-Trump.

Hillary's Hispanic outreach effort hasn't generated much enthusiasm.  Might she consider a Hispanic as a running mate?  HUD secretary Julián Castro's name has been prominently mentioned, but he's no longer the hot commodity he was earlier in the year.  Then there's labor secretary Tom Perez, solid in liberal circles and with party insiders.  But Perez has never been elected to federal office and is considered a long shot at best.

I think in the end, Trump may surpass Romney's Hispanic vote total – but not by enough to make much of a difference.  More problematically, there are indications that with Trump at the top of the ticket, Hispanics are less likely to vote for down ballot Republicans.  This could spell trouble for GOP efforts to hang on to the Senate.