Elections Can Be Swayed By Small Voting Margins of New American Voters

The “New Americans” are a rising part of the U.S. population comprising mainly of post-1965 children of immigrants who were raised during the wide-ranging immigration era from Latin America and Asia, but may also include other immigrants who became naturalized citizens, from Palestine, Dominican Republic and India, to name a few.

The New Americans may have been politically overlooked, but they are becoming a more increasing “voting bloc” that can quite possibly turn the tides for the state, federal and local elections and are proving to be a political force to be reckoned with.

Immigrants who have not applied for citizenship are now applying for it in droves; therefore changing certain city and states’ political landscape; something said in light of the current anti-immigrant rhetoric. The New Americans have new immigrant stories that are different experiences from the sometimes romanticized “Ellis Island” immigration era, which are personal associations to the modern immigrant experience, fraught with language barriers, racism, assimilation issues mixed with modern day plight and concerns – their own cultural responses to their structural changes to American life. It is how they cope and deal individually and collectively to life’s trajectories in a new world.

Most New Americans hold their citizenship and legal statuses in high regard and are becoming more vocal and visible in respect to immigration reform, which will more than likely motivate them to cast their vote in the upcoming elections. The New American electorate will be pivotal in battleground states such as Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and California.

For Latino voters, immigration reform ranks as one of the top three issues they are concerned with and should be worrisome to politicians who are anti-immigrant. Therefore, demonizing and discounting an immigrant may in turn affect the immigrant voter, who now account for one in 10 registered voters in the U.S. New American registered voters jumped 101.5 percent between 1996 and 2008.

A. Banerjee is a Houston immigration lawyer in Texas. Before selecting an immigration lawyer in Houston Texas, contact the Law Offices of Annie Banerjee by visiting their information filled web site at http://www.visatous.com.

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