Why Americans Don't Vote

17 Pages 4244 Words

sentatives ––and hold critical electoral votes for the presidency. At the state and local level, where they make up a larger proportion of the potential electorate, immigrants can have an even greater impact.
Yet, of the nearly thirty million foreign-born people that currently live in the U.S., there are over twelve million legal permanent residents who remain noncitizens and are barred from voting, over one third! In the 1996 elections, for example, 15.5% of the people who did not vote said they were noncitizens (The U.S. Bureau of the Census, ). Of those individuals, 53% were Hispanic; 13.5% were white; 9% were black (there was no category for Asians). Despite the recent increase in the number of immigrants who naturalize—largely due to a host of anti-immigrant legislation—the average time it takes to obtain citizenship is nearly ten years. Moreover, many legal immigrants never become U.S. citizens—not wanting to lose ties to their home country—but remain full time U.S. residents.
Available evidence reveals immigrant political...