These people should at least get to vote on a local level. They have needs and they want change for the better but if they can only sit back and watch the world pass them by they are helpless. Like Bedolla writes about the East LA immigrant and 2nd generation Mexicans. They came together and made positive changes with their voting turnout. Give the non-citizens the right to vote and they can make similar positive changes.
However, I do feel they should have some sort of screening test. The immigrants should have to know something about the U.S. before they can start voting. And I think this article shows that the time to change the law is long since past. Too many people are going unaccounted for. We have got to work on this.
www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=265
3 comments:
It is true, these people do have a voice, but should it be heard because they are just here and their family is affected? I mean there have to be penalties to sneaking in to a country.
I personally agree that they should be heard and help move the country in the right direction so that less people suffer, but there is no way it would pass.
A real good video talking about the upcoming elections and voting by legal immigrants is found at this link.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/02/23/gutierrez.angry.latino.voters.cnn?iref=videosearch
These people came to the country legally and may not be able to vote? This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed quickly or else it will lead to a feeling of complete helplessness by a group that has enough problems as is. We can help lift the stigma through little things like this.
I too think that legal non citizens should be able to vote, at the very least at the local level. However I think that this could lead to political isolation. I think that it is important to remember as Lisa points out in the book, that even citizens, who do have the right to vote, require a large amount of political mobilization from political parties to turn out to vote. This mobilization costs money, money that political parties must shell out. As such these political parties are very careful to put this money into areas that are sure thing votes. Because of this I think that there is a real risk of continued political isolation of these voters, and even more discontent.
AS far as the screening test goes, maybe something along the lines of a test on the electoral process and the governmental processes in the US. It would prove that the Non-legal citizen was active in learning about the voting process and that they were really dedicated to their ability to participate. Allowing themselves to be personally educated definately proves something.
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