UNITED STATES-ELECTIONS: Newest Citizens Take a Stand

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lisa Sandberg

NEW YORK, Nov 5 1996 (IPS) - Anti-immigration rhetoric has turned thousands of immigrants into naturalised citizens who are voting in Tuesday’s elections, say “get-out-the-vote” advocates.

“It feels really good to see such interest” among immigrants, says Florence Elie, a Haitian native who became a U.S. citizen several years ago.

Elie, who arrived at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Brooklyn on the second Tuesday and Friday of each month with a thick stack of voter-registration forms under her arm, says the new citizens signed up to vote “in droves.”

While it is difficult to track how many of these new citizens actually registered to vote, voter registration groups say the number is far above the national average for native-born citizens. Even though the numbers climbed in 1992, the turnout was still just 55 percent of eligible voters.

According to figures from the New York Immigration Coalition, which coordinates the drive Elie is part of, the coalition’s 70 volunteers registered 35,000 naturalised citizens in New York City since last November when the drive began.

Some analysts say that while these new electors may have no significant effect on the presidential elections, their presence is more noticeable in smaller races. Others say the Democratic party is the real winner among those voters who fear the politics of the Republicans.

“Our community is heavily in favour of President (Bill) Clinton because of a number of issues, including the nativism of the right wing and the direction of the Republican party,” says James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute in Washington.

“The rumour among immigrants was that if you didn’t get citizenship now, you won’t be able to stay in the country,” he said, referring to Republican party’s anti-immigration platform.

Margaret Fung, whose Asian American Legal Defence and Education Fund in New York, conducted voter-registration drives, says “a steady stream” of people would register to vote right after each swearing-in ceremony for naturalised citizens.

“We’re conducting exit polls today to see how people voted,” she said.

The numbers, says Thomas Pierre, executive director of a New York City-based voter registration group, are being felt, particularly in places like New York and California, where immigration populations are concentrated.

“Even Republicans like (New York Mayor Rudolph) Giuliani understands the damage they will suffer if they ignore this block,” said Pierre, who also credits Republican rhetoric for helping to galvanise immigrants into becoming citizens who vote.

Arab Americans, Asian Americas, Latinos and other immigrants took the pledge of allegiance to the United States in record numbers this year. Nearly 1.2 million immigrants — three times last year’s number — became citizens across the country, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The INS expects 318,000 residents in seven Southern California counties to become citizens this year.

“We owe it all to the actions of the Republican Agenda,” Pierre said. “We had a poster child on how to vote, with (Speaker of the House of Representatives) Newt Gingrich plastered over it. This welfare stuff is really affecting them,” he said, referring to the Republican-sponsored Immigration and Welfare Reform Act, which denies welfare payments to legal immigrants who have been here for less than five years.

A sampling of New York’s newest citizens indicates they are voting with a number of issues in mind.

Maria Feliz, a 57-year-old Dominican native who became naturalised so she would have “a voice,” said Clinton “was the only hope” for softening what she says are the anti-poor policies of the last decade. “Clinton is the best alternative though he is not ideal,” said Feliz in her native Spanish.

“Things used to be better for us, the poor didn’t always live so squeezed,” said Feliz, noting that for months she has been unable to find work and subsists today on welfare benefits totaling 351 dollars per month.

Though she is angered that Clinton signed the welfare reform bill that may cut her government subsidies still further, she believes he was pressured into doing so. “They put him against the wall,” she says of the Republican Congress.

Bozena Kolodzejczyk, a Polish native who was naturalised in August, is voting for Clinton. Like many immigrants, she is troubled by Republican cuts in social spending, and their “get tough” approach to immigration.

“For us, it’s not fair they cut everything for illegals,” said the 36-year-old Brooklyn housewife. “Some people need help,” she said, adding that she worries the government safety net may not be there if she, or her less-affluent friends, become ill.

Bozena says she agrees with the five-year limit that this year’s welfare bill places on welfare recipients, but opposes the restrictions on aid to new legal immigrants. “Why can’t (legal immigrants) apply for benefits, when they pay taxes like everyone else?”

Rozena’s husband, Antoni Kolodzejczyk, who was naturalised five weeks ago, is less concerned about welfare cuts to immigrants. A staunch Republican since the Reagan era, he supports Bob Dole.

His support for Republicans goes back to 1981, the year the Polish Communists declared martial law, and Ronald Reagan granted temporary amnesty to Polish immigrants.

“Reagan was very good to me,” he says, adding that he hangs framed photographs of the last three Republican presidents on the office wall of his construction business.

Antoni, who landed his first job in the United States as a porter in a bowling alley and now makes more than 50,000 dollars as the owner of his construction firm, says he likes the Republican’s “get-tough” approach to foreign policy.

“China will be a big problem for the U.S. in the next 50 years,” he said. “The U.S. can show them the big fist or be weak and get big problems. The world’s number one country must have a confident president like Ronald Reagan,” he said, adding that it was Reagan and Bush who brought down the Communists in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.