The Suffrage Movement of Our Time
By Fernando Cabrera, Council Member, District 14, Bronx
As political debates on immigrant rights have reached provocative heights in America, voices across the spectrum of opinions have generally focused on issues related to education, employment, and deportation. An equally deserving but perhaps less incendiary topic is now receiving increasing attention in states across the nation, including New York: enfranchisement of legal immigrants. This year, the New York City Council is set to reintroduce a bill that would grant 1.3 million legal immigrants the right to vote in local elections. Allowing permanent residents to vote is our modern-day suffrage movement, and it demands our attention if we truly care about adhering to the inclusive ideals of democracy on which our nation was founded.
Given the general confusion, lack of understanding, and unfortunate bias around the word “immigrant”, it is worth clarifying who exactly legal immigrants are. Legal immigrants are individuals who have been granted authorization to live and work in the United States on a permanent basis. Most individuals who become legal immigrants, or permanent residents, are sponsored by a family member or employer in the United States. These individuals, far from receiving such authorization as a handout or a pardon, go through an expensive and tedious process that involves an in-depth investigation of their personal and professional histories and intentions.
Another question to ask is who are legal immigrants or permanent residents not? They are not citizens. They are noncitizens. Yet this alone is no reason to exclude them from the right to vote in local elections. Voting rights and citizenship status are not essentially tantamount; the historical connection between citizenship and suffrage is tenuous at best. As electoral reform advocates have pointed out, black Americans and women were not allowed to vote for decades despite their obvious status as US citizens. Arguments that noncitizen voters are incapable of voting intelligently are troublingly reminiscent of similar arguments advanced in opposition to extending the vote to these marginalized groups. The United States Supreme Court has in the past struck down any voting rights limitations on the basis of lack of knowledge. The scores of American citizens who are politically illiterate will never be denied their right to vote.
Opponents have also questioned why permanent residents do not simply pursue citizenship in order to access the right to vote. A host of reasons, including bureaucratic and financial barriers, often prevent or delay the naturalization process. While the path to citizenship can thus be long and arduous, permanent residents are immediately required to shoulder the same burdens that enfranchised citizens do: they are required to obey all local, state and federal laws; they are required to file income tax returns and report their income to authorities; they are required to support the democratic form of government; and they are required to register with the Selective Service if they are male and between the ages of 18 and 25.
Voting rights expansion advocate Ron Hayduk succinctly highlights the problematic nature of requiring permanent residents to fulfill these responsibilities while simultaneously denying them the right to vote: “In a country where ‘no taxation without representation’ was the rallying cry for revolution, and where government theoretically rests ‘on the consent of the governed’, allowing all residents to vote only makes sense.” This is particularly true at the local level, where elections obviously center on local concerns, namely how to use tax dollars to improve education, housing, sanitation, public safety, and health. It is nothing short of unjust to require individuals to pay taxes but deny them an opportunity to influence how tax money is spent.
Indeed it is worth looking back into our nation’s history in determining how to move forward on this issue. For the first 150 years of the Republic, noncitizen residents voted in municipal, state and even federal elections in 40 American states and territories. Noncitizens’ votes thus played an important part in building the nation until America’s involvement in World War I sparked an intense fear of outsiders, or what scholars have referred to as “xenophobic nationalism”, resulting in state legislation limiting municipal voting rights to citizens.
A policy founded on fear has no place in a true democracy. Democracy by its very nature cannot be weakened by its expansion. Voting is a marker of full community membership as well as the primary vehicle by which individuals can exercise their civic right and responsibility to shape public policy in a democracy. Allowing permanent residents to vote in New York City in particular is both a nod to our past as a city built by immigrants and a step towards increasing the vibrancy and inclusivity of our democracy.
New York City Council Member Fernando Cabrera 