rssHow Involved Should Undocumented Immigrants Be in Elections?
Friday, October 22, 2010 at 3:01 pm
- 11 Comments
There are about 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, many of whom have children in public schools and pay property and sales taxes. They can’t vote in federal elections or in most municipal elections, but they can volunteer for campaigns and canvass for causes they support.
The Washington Post has an article today on efforts by OneAmerica Votes, an arm of the large immigrant rights organization OneAmerica, to get immigrants involved in the election. Non-citizens — both undocumented immigrants and legal residents — are canvassing for Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in support of comprehensive immigration reform:
Pramila Jayapal, head of OneAmerica Votes, says the campaign is about empowering immigrants who may not feel like they can contribute to a campaign because they can’t vote.
“Immigrants really do matter,” Jayapal said. “If we can’t vote ourselves, we’re gonna knock on doors, or get family members to vote.”
So far the illegal immigrants going door-to-door aren’t meeting opposition. Craig Keller, an organizer for Respect WA, a group pushing for stricter immigration law in the Washington, said he doesn’t mind illegal immigrants volunteering for vote drives, he just wants to make sure mistakes on the voter rolls don’t allow them to vote.
“Anybody can go out and wave a sign, but when it comes to who’s making the choices, there’s no question they need to be citizens,” Keller said.
As I reported today, voters in two cities will decide on Nov. 2 whether to allow non-citizens to vote in certain elections. In Portland, Maine, a ballot question could allow legal immigrants who have not yet obtained citizenship to vote in municipal elections. In San Francisco, a proposition would allow all parents of public school students to vote in school elections regardless of their legal status.
Supporters argue the efforts are about fairness: Immigrants pay taxes, so they should be able to have a say in government. It’s not unprecedented: Chicago allows all parents to vote in its school elections, and six Maryland cities allow legal immigrants to vote in municipal elections. Early in the country’s history, non-citizens could vote in nearly every state.
But opponents of the measures argue the right to vote should be restricted to citizens, claiming to do otherwise would disincentivize gaining citizenship for legal residents. “It’s silly not to require that formal step of marrying America instead of just shacking up,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the pro-enforcement Center for American Studies.
Stanley Renshon, also of the Center for Immigration Studies, made a similar point in a post about the OneAmerica canvassing effort:
What’s wrong with illegal immigrants taking part in the political process by trying to convince others to vote for pro-legalization candidates? Legally, as noted, nothing; ethically a great deal. [...]
They have no legal standing as members of the American national community and no moral standing, either, since they are present only by virtue of their own decision to violate American immigration laws.
Renshon is right about at least the legality of the issue: Immigrants have every right to participate in campaigns. If the ballot initiatives pass in San Francisco and Portland, Maine, they will also legally be allowed to vote.
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Pingback posted October 22, 2010 @ 4:27 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mario and Elise Foley, WashIndependent. WashIndependent said: How Involved Should Undocumented Immigrants Be in Elections? http://bit.ly/bktqSt [...]
Comment posted October 22, 2010 @ 8:20 pm
Foreign Citizens are barred from U.S. election for reason.
ICE needs to round them up and the Feds need bring them up on charges of trying to change American elections.
Comment posted October 23, 2010 @ 1:51 am
Exactly. There are no laws that forbid undocumented immigrants from talking to their friends and neighbors about voting. What a simple and straightforward description of good practice in a democracy. Anyone helping get more registered voters to the polls should be applauded.
Comment posted October 23, 2010 @ 2:10 am
Commencing now we must be very thorough in watching for voter fraud, as it has already been detected in Houston, Texas and other locations. We cannot depend or rely on the “honor System” anymore as in last ten years. GOOGLE–Voter fraud and illegal alien costs–specially the 2.6 Trillion dollars for the Liberal push for Amnesty and witness the growing incidents within the Democrat party of voter fraud. Another episode quickly concealed was just hours after the Yuma Sun newspaper Reported that 3000 voter registrations had been vacated at the Yuma County Recorder’s Office by a group allied with the SEIU union (with most of them consequently found to be fraudulent.) As yet I haven't revealed any voter fraud other than in the Democratic registrations. This is a distressed struggle through fraud to get an upper hand in the midterm election.
Senator Reid (NV); Boxer (CA); Feingold (WI); Bennett (CO); Inouye (HI)Lincoln (AR)); Mikulski (MD); Gillibrand (NY); Schumer (NY) Wyden (OR) Leahy (VT); Murray (WA) and Majority Speaker Pelosi. New Politicians, Governors, Mayors, Police Chiefs and other elected officers, city managers are pro-amnesty and Gubernatorial hopeful Jerry Brown is pro-Amnesty, so is Gavin Newsom, and have all catered to illegal immigrants by granting them access to welfare and all social services destined for taxpaying citizens. The Democrats have also promised illegal aliens a Path to Citizenship or AMNESTY, so illegal aliens have absolutely nothing to lose by voting for the Liberal Democratic Monarchy. Harry Reid has become especially defiant of the 1986 Immigration law, even though he swore allegiance to the people of these United States. He even tried to table the E-Verify business identification program in the Senate. Now he wants to pass a new transportation law of a bullet train between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, only the problem being contractors will likely hire cheap illegal labor, to bolster their profit margin.
In fact President Obama's Department of Justice have hassled Tea Party members watching for voting irregularities, but little or nothing about straight forward intimidation by the newly organized Black panthers gangs wielding clubs. As you would guess the majority of national press has not publicized any of these severe incidents and therefore you can only dig the dirt up in the Google/Yahoo archives, E-magazines and unbiased open border media. We need serious oversight in all polling locations and at least one independent officer to police the registrations and absentee ballots, owing to the sudden appearance of voter fraud. We should have a federal law for every district in America, to have Independent polling watchers as does Harris County, Texas. Our Vote exists to protect the right to vote and the integrity of the election process, but if its compromised by extremists the loss to our democracy be great.
A spokesman for the Harris County Watchers state, “We have uncovered likely violations of law in Harris County including non-citizens registering to vote, potential forgeries in voter applications, and multiple registrations for the same person. We have provided law enforcement authorities evidence of this activity, and we hope they act to remedy the problem as soon as possible.” This is urgently significant in states with massive populations of illegal aliens, because they have voted and will again, as they are desperate to keep Liberals-Democrats in Washington, to support the passing of–AMNESTY. In border states such as Sanctuary State California and Nevada they are heavy with illegal immigrant populations should be closely watched for bogus voting.
Pingback posted October 23, 2010 @ 6:53 am
[...] http://washingtonindependent.com/101428/how-involved-should-undocumented-immigrants-be-in-elections By Elise Foley 10/22/10 3:01 PM [...]
Comment posted October 23, 2010 @ 12:25 pm
Our Government, has allowed the invasion of 30 million criminals in direct violation of Article IV, Section IV of our Constitution. they force American tax payers to pay Billions to provide Welfare, Prison cells, Educate the invaders children, free medical care,massive document fraud, & are destroying our schools, hospitals, communities, culture while Robbing, Raping, Killing & Assaulting American Citizens WAKE UP PEOPLE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsH8xvjTAlo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btj6IeOFkis&feature=player_embedded
http://immigrationcounters.com/
http://www.ojjpac.org/memorial.asp
http://www.immigrationshumancost.org/
http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty580.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8upCLpPlV0&feature=player_embedded
Every Non-representative including obama and holder need to be IMPEACHED! for not upholding the oath of office they swore to defend the Constitution! If these clowns were to do their job, this would all be a Moot point!
Comment posted October 23, 2010 @ 11:46 pm
Good for them. If you pay property and sales taxes, you should at least be able to help those who will defend you in Washington. Roberto DePosada is wrong when he says, “you should not give your vote away.” Go out and get those latinos who can vote to cast their votes for the Democrats. The Democrats in the long run will past immigration reform and bring fairness to the immigration issue. Republicans just don't care.
Comment posted October 24, 2010 @ 1:27 am
These people are deliberate criminals by intent, with malice aforethought. They have NO rights and therefore have no business trying to steer elections at any level, either legally or ethically.
Pingback posted October 25, 2010 @ 6:40 pm
[...] How Involved Should Undocumented Immigrants Be in Elections?: [...]
Comment posted October 28, 2010 @ 3:39 pm
so we should send out absentee ballots to hugo chavez, Bin laden, why not the French and russians. count them in our elections. I mean isnt that basicly what we are doing? What constitution……
Comment posted December 27, 2010 @ 11:18 pm
What’s your last name? Gonzales, Romeriz, Chavez, Aguirre?
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