The Growing Power of Immigrant Voters

A lot of New Yorkers (and people across the country) have been wondering: Why wasn’t immigration reform mentioned in any of the presidential debates or emphasized by the McCain or Obama campaigns? After being such a “hot topic” in the past few years, why has it been nearly dropped from national discussions?

According to a recent article in Caribbean Life, a weekly NYC-area newspaper:

A day before the final debate, Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), stated, “The American people are crying out for a solution, and the presidential candidates owe it to the voters to articulate their vision about immigration reform instead of continuing their silence about it…. For instance, there were over four million immigrants deported last year, with hundreds of thousands more family members affected by that…. This is a huge phenomenon; yet, it is not addressed in any of the presidential debates.”

Hong also emphasized the disconnect between McCain and Obama’s desires to win the immigrant vote and their silence on the very issue that many immigrants want to hear about….

Patrick Young, an attorney with the Central American Refugee Center and a board member of the Long Island Immigrant Alliance, revealed that immigrants on Long Island are extremely excited about the election, but when they watch the debates, they don’t get the impression that this is an issue Americans care about.

The truth is that immigrants are playing a big role in the election this year, whether the campaigns and mainstream media like to talk about it or not!

Locally, the New York Immigration Coalition and its partners have registered 275,000 new immigrant voters in New York state this year; the New York State Youth Leadership Council has mobilized hundreds of immigrant youth to help get out the vote; and Make the Road New York recently launched its Immigrant Voter Action Campaign to help get 16,000 voters to the polls in Brooklyn and Staten Island, and another 7,000 voters in Queens.

Ana Maria Archila of Make the Road says, “Immigrant voters are growing in number and in power, and this year they could make the difference in places where the margin of victory may be very small.”