Immigration Rallies Focus On Getting Out the Vote

By Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Thu May 01, 2008 at 07:37:18 PM EST
Tags: immigrants rights (all tags)

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Another facet to today's immigrant rights marches (Received by e-mail from America's Voice, which doesn't seem to have a website for me to link to]:

Immigrant rights supporters from coast to coast have been registering voters and helping people become citizens in unprecedented numbers—increasing civic participation in key states and Congressional districts in this exciting election year.

...This year’s rallies are just one snapshot of the intense voter mobilization effort around the country that we believe will play a central role in the 2008 election cycle. Already there has been a surge of immigrant voter participation in the early primary states that will likely spell doom or reward for politicians who seek to use anti-immigration as a wedge in the election.

Some quotes: [More...]

Organizers have been focusing their efforts since then in less visible ways: pressuring Congress for immigration reform legislation, registering foreign-born citizens to vote and encouraging legal immigrants to become U.S. citizens. A record number of naturalization applications were filed last year. [San Francisco Chronicle, 5/1/08]

"If we don't make our voice heard to the electorate, then there's no point," said Ricardo Serrano, outreach coordinator of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights for the Northwest suburbs, prior to the march. "We're trying to move away from, 'just come and march and this is the one thing you do this year for immigration reform.' "[Chicago Daily Herald, 5/1/08]

"We hope policymakers will look at this data to see who is in their district and how to best serve their interests," said Daranee Petsod, executive director of Grantmakers Concerned With Immigrants and Refugees, a Sebastopol, Calif.-based organization. "With these numbers, immigrants can invigorate our democracy." [Los Angeles Times, 4/29/08]

"While the breadth of activities will be significant, most eyes are turned toward the November election," said Rich Stolz, a coordinator with Fair Immigration Reform Movement, which oversees activist groups across the country. "We've been calling on the candidates to prioritize immigration." [Associated Press, 4/29/08]

Speaking Spanish, Bermudez, the group's founder and director, says he's looking for registered voters to sign a petition for an opponent of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. But he also wants those in the lobby to know this: Together with Hispanics around Arizona, they have political power. "The most positive thing we can do is make sure everybody who is a U.S. citizen is registered to vote and everybody who is registered to vote comes out to vote," Bermudez says. [Tucson Citizen, 4/30/08]

The county employment development corporation study, conducted by its chief economist Jack Kyser, analyzed three industries thought to employ high numbers of immigrant workers -- fashion, food and furniture manufacturing -- and found that about 10,000 businesses created nearly 500,000 direct and indirect jobs and produced $18.3 billion in annual wages. If 15% of those firms left -- and several are being aggressively wooed by out-of-state business recruiters, Kyser said -- the region would lose nearly 75,000 jobs, the report found. [Los Angeles Times, 5/1/08]

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Immigration Rallies Focus On Getting Out the Vote | 18 comments (18 topical)

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I'm quite certain... (none / 0) (#1)
by white n az on Thu May 01, 2008 at 08:10:30 PM EST

that the good folks at DK will see this as another Hillary plot.

I hope they get photo-ids of some kind (none / 0) (#2)
by ruffian on Thu May 01, 2008 at 08:48:10 PM EST

as they are registering to vote. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to do it then rather than by driver's license? I wish one of the candidates would come out with a truly innovative plan in that area. I know voter registration is a state and local issue, but ids could be federally subsidized.

I'm so sick of all these excuses they (mostly republicans) use to prevent legally registered people from voting - especially sick of the false accusations that hordes of undocumented immigrants are trying to vote.

I'm ranting...just that it is so unfair, and so easy to fix if we had the will to do it.

: Beginning To Think That The Pols Only Have (none / 0) (#3)
by MO Blue on Thu May 01, 2008 at 09:02:39 PM EST

the will to collect their pay checks and fill their campaign chests.

Just some minor details (none / 0) (#4)
by LonewackoDotCom on Thu May 01, 2008 at 11:19:11 PM EST

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is headed by someone linked to the Mexican government.

The Fair Immigration Reform Movement includes the ICIRR and another group that's allegedly collaborated with the Mexican government.

Bermudez tried to declare economic war on Arizona.

Several decades ago, the Soviet Union played many U.S. liberals like a cheap harp. Intellectually honest liberals might want to sit down and think through who profits from massive immigration. As in, who makes money.

And you're not (none / 0) (#5)
by Jeralyn on Thu May 01, 2008 at 11:36:12 PM EST

playing us?


Excellent point (none / 0) (#7)
by Wile ECoyote on Fri May 02, 2008 at 06:14:13 AM EST

The Mexican Gov'ts ability to use the US as a safety valve allows the most corrupt gov't in the Western Hemisphere to stagger on without having to reform.

There are plenty of people who are willingly aiding and abetting the Mexican gov't in this endeavor. T


You mean like..... (none / 0) (#9)
by kdog on Fri May 02, 2008 at 09:39:05 AM EST

Bush, George W.?

Your beef with the Mexican & US governments is legitimate...its like an unspoken deal where we get cheap dishwashers and they get people off their dole.

Just don't take it out on the dishwasher...he/she is doing what they gotta do. If we can ship our factories to Mexico, it's only fair and just for the factory worker to be allowed to ship him/herself to the US.


Um (none / 0) (#10)
by Wile ECoyote on Fri May 02, 2008 at 10:42:37 AM EST

you want to compare factories to people? Go ahead. I will presume the factories had permission from the Mexican gov't to show up on their doorstep. agree?


It;'s what I call a fair, free market.... (none / 0) (#11)
by kdog on Fri May 02, 2008 at 11:02:13 AM EST

you can't give capital more rights than labor...that's not a free market, and that's not a fair market.

And yes, the corrupt mexican govt. probably ok'd the factories, so what? Are you proposing corporations should have more rights than human beings?


I am proposing both (none / 0) (#13)
by Wile ECoyote on Fri May 02, 2008 at 01:08:03 PM EST

factories and people have permission to enter countries.


But you can't give one.... (none / 0) (#14)
by kdog on Fri May 02, 2008 at 01:13:43 PM EST

preferential treatment over the other.

I propose giving both the freedom to find their best deal, wherever that may be.


Now where did I say give one preferential (none / 0) (#15)
by Wile ECoyote on Fri May 02, 2008 at 01:22:38 PM EST

treatment over the other. You need to reread the posts. Point it out.


: You didn't... (none / 0) (#17)
by kdog on Fri May 02, 2008 at 02:14:19 PM EST

I felt it was implied....no country is gonna turn down a factory which means new jobs.
An unskilled or semi-skilled human being looking for a fair wage and benefits...few countries want those.
So under your proposal the states have all the power, I'd rather give it to the individual worker or factory builder.

Can people register to vote who are not citizens? (none / 0) (#6)
by SueBonnetSue on Fri May 02, 2008 at 01:41:36 AM EST

I thought that only citizens could vote, but I must be wrong since so many immigrants are registering to vote.

When did we change the citizenship rule? Or was that never a rule? I'm confused.

: There is no (none / 0) (#8)
by AnninCA on Fri May 02, 2008 at 07:17:36 AM EST

way to tell in CA.

Jeralyn often says we should (none / 0) (#12)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri May 02, 2008 at 12:32:53 PM EST

refer to them as undocumented residents and not illegal aliens because most of them entered the country legally and overstayed their visa.

I'm not sure I see the loginc of that argument since overstaying one's visa is illegal, but, even so, there are many who say J's flat-out wrong when she says most or over half illegally overstayed their visas:

NPR All Things Considered, June 14, 2006 · Many immigrants who are in the United States illegally never jumped a fence, hiked through the desert or paid anyone to help them sneak into the country. According to a recent study, 45 percent of illegal immigrants came here on a legal visa, and then overstayed that visa. NPR's Ted Robbins reports on the massive visa overstay problem and what the federal government is doing to deal with this aspect of the illegal immigrant issue.

Much of the national debate has focused on illegal immigrants sneaking across the Mexican border. But about 45 percent come here legally as tourists, students, shoppers and businesspeople, according to a report this year by the Pew Hispanic Center. Then they "overstay" their visas.

Visa overstaying comprises a significant part of the illegal-immigration problem. An estimated 40 percent of the 9 million illegal aliens (3.6 million) are overstays.

The study estimates that the visa overstay population in the United States is at least 3.6 million people, out of an estimated 9 million to 10 million illegal immigrants.

Some people overstay visas due to illness, accidents, a missed flight, or other understandable reasons. However, it is also true that an estimated 35 to 40 percent of illegal immigrants are people who overstayed.

Here's a fact you don't hear much about: Between a third and a half of the nation's illegal immigrants -- at least 3.8 million people -- entered the USA legally [and overstayed their visas].

The immigration problem may take care of itself (none / 0) (#16)
by SeeEmDee on Fri May 02, 2008 at 01:59:07 PM EST

But not in a way that will be welcomed by those angry about it.

The economic situation is worsening in the US, with the barely acknowledged existence of tent cities (the last time this happened, they were called "Hoovervilles") being a base symptom of that worsening. As things get progressively worse here, competition for jobs will increase to very tense levels. Those non-US, undocumented workers here will find the kind of services they provide to be less in demand...and will face stiffer competition amongst the native-born for what's left that is.

The result may be similar to what happened on the Border during the Great Depression; expulsion of the non-US workers. The safety valve that the Mexican elite depends upon to release social, economic and political pressures will be twisted shut...and those same pressures which have caused so many of Mexico's citizens to emigrate elsewhere will increase. The effect will no doubt be explosive, figuratively and literally.

If those thinking the situation is bad now are upset, wait a couple years, and you'll hear full-throated demands for the National Guard to patrol the area, because the entire Border could begin to resemble what's happening in places like Nuevo Laredo.

Ironically, Bush... (none / 0) (#18)
by diogenes on Sat May 03, 2008 at 10:22:24 PM EST

Bush and McCain are the candidates who have pushed actual bills to help undocumented aliens who are here. Just as Republicans push school vouchers which a majority or inner city blacks prefer. I wonder who the illegals will vote for?