Groups outline plans to get Latinos registered to vote in Oregon

Organizers hope to affect elections in 2006 and beyond

THELMA GUERRERO
Statesman Journal

http://tinyurl.com/kdvfq

June 30, 2006

With the immigration debate expected to be revived in September, immigrant-rights groups in the Salem area will begin a naturalization and voter-registration campaign across the state Saturday.

Group officials made the announcement Thursday during a news conference. They are banking that the immigrants who took part in pro-immigration rallies during the spring will cast their votes and significantly impact the November elections.

"We want to keep building momentum for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a pathway to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country," said Aeryca Steinbauer, the coordinator of CAUSA, an immigrant-rights group in Woodburn. "Fundamentally, it's about what kind of nation we want the United States to be," she said. "I don't think we want a nation of second-class citizens.

"Right now, our immigration system excludes millions of people from equal participation in the electoral process and equal rights."

The local effort is part of "Democracy Summer," a national campaign launched by the We Are American Alliance, a nationwide collection of labor, faith and immigrant-rights groups.

Its coast-to-coast goal is to have 1 million immigrants both naturalized and registered to vote in the November election. It also focuses on 18- to 24-year-old children of immigrants.

Blanca Cabrera, 18, is a youth organizer and member of Latinos Unidos Siempre, a project of Mano of Mano Family Center in Salem that works to empower Latino youth. She is eager to get cranking on registering fellow peers to vote.

"This will be my first time voting," she said. "I think it's important for youth to have a political voice, and we saw that during the walkouts. It's clear the next step is to vote."

Bart Márquez, the director of Voz Hispana, a Woodburn-based group dedicated to increasing civic participation by Latino voters, said the group's outreach efforts would focus on U.S.-born Latino children of immigrants in Marion and Polk counties.

"We want to make a significant advance in registering Latino youth," Márquez said. "We also intend to keep mobilizing them to register past the 2006 election."

Márquez cited a national study released Thursday, which shows that the number of Latino children of immigrants registered to vote lags behind other groups. The ages of those children range from 18 to 24.

The report, by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, found that nationally, 54.8 percent of Latino children of immigrants were registered to vote, compared with 72.1 percent of the population as a whole.

In Oregon, there are 21,600 U.S.-born children of immigrants who are not registered but who are of voting age.

In Marion County, that figure is more than 1,500.

The number of U.S.-born children of immigrants who will be eligible to vote in the 2008 elections is 11,100, according to the ICIRR study. No breakdown is available for Marion County.

The total number of immigrants eligible for citizenship, the number of unregistered U.S.-born children of immigrants and the number of U.S.-born children of immigrants who would be eligible to vote in 2008 in Oregon is 107,000.

"These new voters could dramatically worsen the electoral prospects of any elected official who opposes comprehensive immigration reform," said Josh Hoyt, the report's author.

Organizers plan to hold naturalization fairs at events in Salem, Independence, Eugene, Hood River and Portland.