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May 22, 2004
HispanicVista.com
Let
Non-Citizens Vote
By Domenico Maceri
"Don’t I have any rights?" I yelled at the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) official in Los Angeles, after waiting for
hours to deal with some minor paperwork to become a US citizen. "Not
until you become a citizen, and then you can write to your
congressman," the official responded
with more anger than he had received from me.
I had been in the country for about eight years and one of the reasons I
wanted to become a citizen was to be able to vote. Yet, as a legal
immigrant in the process of becoming a citizen, I should have been allowed
to vote so that I could have had some rights. READ
MORE...
Thursday, May 20,
2004
Queens Tribune
Queens
Dominicans Cast Overseas Votes
The walk down Roosevelt Avenue brought the voice of Dominicans in Queens
to the ballots of their native country. P.S. 19 on Roosevelt Avenue was
among three polling sites in Queens and 16 citywide where American
citizens of Dominican decent were able to vote in a presidential election
in their native country.
:::::
[T]he issue of opening polls to non-citizens is not foreign to New York
City.
A bill to do just
that is currently floating in the City Council, and will be the topic of
several community forums this summer, said Cheryl Wertz of the advocacy
group, New Immigrants Community Empowerment (NICE).
Wertz said
there is no federal requirement as to who is allowed to vote, calling it a
state controlled issue. She
added that a citizenship “as a voting requirement came in at the exact
same time as poll tax and reading requirements” which were used to “disenfranchise
particular communities.” READ
MORE
[CLARIFICATION:
to vote in the Dominican Republic, Dominican-Americans must still be
Dominican citizens.]
The Demopolis
Times (Alabama)
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Let non-citizens vote in local elections if they can provide application proof
By Roger Hernandez
.....Although the United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services claims it is "continuing to modernize and
improve the naturalization process and would like to decrease the time it
takes to an average of 6 months," the actual wait is anywhere from
two to 10 years, depending on the local office.
Two years of waiting is barely acceptable, and a full decade, on top of
the minimum five years of legal residence required before someone can even
become a citizen, is absurd.
One way to get around this abuse of patience: Let noncitizens vote in
local elections -- and local elections only -- if they can show they
applied for citizenship two years earlier but are still caught in red
tape. That shows they have made the commitment to this nation even if they
are not yet citizens -- through no fault of their own.
READ
MORE
Foxnews.com
Monday, May 17, 2004
Immigrant Voters Could Change Election Landscapes
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON — A scattered movement growing across the country would buck
decades of conventional wisdom and allow non-citizens the right to vote in
local elections, a move that proponents say would give immigrants the
ability to directly impact government in their communities.
"We’re a stronger society as a whole if we have a good quality of
life and everyone participates," said Ron Hayduk, political science
professor at the City College of New York and a supporter of the movement. READ
MORE
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