The Obama administration is aggressively pushing a plan that could pave the way for nearly 9 million new legal immigrants to become U.S. citizens.

NPR describes the campaign that could legally add millions of new voters to the rolls by 2016 as a "multifaceted effort" that includes online citizenship practice tests, the option of paying fees using a credit card and the airing of public service announcements on Univision.

President Obama announced the bold initiative in a video Thursday, making certain to stress that the administration's agenda is not of a partisan nature.

While the White House is sticking to its story of nonpartisanship, Karthick Ramakrishnan, a public policy professor at the University of California, Riverside who focuses on civic engagement and immigration, said efforts to increase the ranks of U.S. citizens are often seen through a political lens.

"Anytime there's a major push for naturalization by the White House ... especially when a Democratic administration does it, there's always the allegation that this is an attempt to try to get more Democratic voters," he said.

Ramakrishnan added typically when political conversation turns to the subject of "pathway to citizenship," Republicans instantly become resistant because many of the new voters are expected to be Democrats.

Reports suggest of the 8.8 million legal immigrants that would be impacted by the president's plan, about 5.4 million are Latino. Pew Research Center director of Hispanic research Mark Hugo-Lopez also points out that naturalized Latino citizens tend to vote at higher rates than U.S.-born Latinos.

In addition, of the 3.4 million remaining immigrants who are not Latino, many come from Asia and a strong majority of both Latinos and Asian-Americans voted for President Obama during both of his winning elections.

Overall, the White House's citizenship increase push is part of the president's Task Force on New Americans plan, which was actually launched last year stemming from a litany of executive actions the president enacted on immigration.