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Voters Mobilizing across the Country to Support the Immigration Reform Movement

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The following is a press statement from the Alliance for Citizenship:

Groups Come Together to Demonstrate the Power of the Latino, Asian and Immigrant Community with Over 80 Civic Engagement Events in 9 Key States This Week

Leaders from civic engagement, voter registration, labor, and advocacy organizations are joining the comprehensive immigration reform effort. Today, on a press call representatives from these groups laid out plans to mobilize Latino, Asian and immigrant voters and shared new data and immediate plans. The effort is being spearheaded by the Alliance for Citizenship, the national coalition working with national, state, and local groups to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.

Organizers have pulled together more than 80 civic engagement actions and events across the country this week. This effort is a prelude to a larger set of actions that will take place during the August recess to demonstrate the urgent need and desire for immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship.

Maria Elena Durazo, AFL-CIO, said:

As labor builds its 2014 political program across all 50 states, voter registration will be a big part of it. Everyone should be registered to vote, and all registered voters should participate in elections. As we move toward accomplishing those lofty goals, the political consequences will be seen and heard far and wide.

Clarissa Martinez de Castro, NCLR Education Fund, said:

For us, voter participation is about policy change.  Last year NCLR registered nearly 100 thousand Latino voters, and reached over ¼ of a million in GOTV efforts.  These voters helped create the game-changing moment in the immigration debate. And since, we have continued to engage them in teletown halls, action alerts, and advocacy actions,” said Clarissa Martinez-De-Castro, NCLR director of civic engagement and immigration.  “We intend to triple that goal next year.  Some politicians may be buying into the notion that they can ignore this electorate—or insult us without consequence.  But that is a fool’s errand.  We are significant in a good number of districts and growing in many more.  And working with the many partners on this call, we intend to continue working to close the participation gap, and ensure that the nearly 900 thousand Latino citizens of voting age turning 18 every year between now and 2028, have an opportunity to register and make their policy choices heard.

Kica Matos, Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), said:

FIRM will continue to keep up the pressure on House GOP members to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill that contains a pathway to citizenship and keeps families together. Too many of our families have already suffered too much under the broken immigration system. FIRM is committed to holding civic engagement actions until the House passes a comprehensive bill.

Rocío Saenz, SEIU Local 615, said:

This August, we are ramping our efforts. We are going to be online, on the ground, in the air and in key districts where the Latino population and our membership is strong and can magnify the call for commonsense immigration reform. America is ready to move to a 21st century immigration system with a roadmap to citizenship. It’s on the House leadership to give us a vote on citizenship; and make no mistake, we won’t give up until we make a dent in history with real immigration reform.

Gail L Kitch, Voter Participation Center, said:

The Voter Participation Center (VPC) is excited to have the opportunity to take advantage of an environment of increased attention on immigration reform policy to work in coalition with leading civic engagement organizations to ensure that the voices and values of Latinos, Asians and other historically underrepresented groups are included in the dialogue.  The VPC looks forward to capitalizing on this moment of heightened recognition of the importance of participation to build on its 2012 successes in registering and turning out hundreds of thousands of Latinos, Asians and other fast-growing demographic groups.

Christine Chen, APIAVote, said:

The Asian American and Pacific Islander population is the fastest growing racial group overall. With 19 million Asians living in the U.S., we have seen this translate into the growth of the Asian American electorate and this base of voters and their issues of priority can no longer be ignored. APIAVote and our community partners nationwide will be continuing our efforts to mobilize our base of voters to get comprehensive immigration reform passed.

Francisco Heredia, Mi Familia Vota, said:

We have continued our work from the 2012 elections into this year, engaging Latino voters and supporters in the fight for immigration reform. With our partners in the movement, Mi Familia Vota will continue to host citizenship workshops, phone banks, voter registration drives across the country to hold our elected officials accountable and keep on raising our community’s voice to help pass immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship this year.

Maria Teresa Kumar, Voto Latino, said:

Young American Latinos have a strong interest in immigration reform as this is a personal issue to them,” said Jimmy Hernández of Voto Latino. “As the digital arm of the immigration reform movement, we will continue to amplify American Latinos’ calls for reform through social media and leverage their engagement to ensure they are also registered to vote so that civic participation continues within this growing group.

The movement for reform is committed to involving more and more voters in the political process to demand just immigration reform that paves a pathway to citizenship. Politicians will be reminded at the ballot box that the Latino and immigrant vote is powerful, and growing in importance.