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by jtxxwl 1986 days ago
Certainly not legally (until they become citizens), but their children can when they turn 18, and said immigration has been happening for many decades.
2 comments

Immigration has been happening for the entire history of the United States
Sure, but there was a huge shift in the demographics of immigrants about 55 years ago.
And we got to the heart of the issue. The problem for these people isn't immigrants. It is the "wrong" immigrants.

A first generation American is no less American than a 4th generation American and an overwhelming majority of us are the children of immigrants if you go back far enough.

They are certainly the "wrong" immigrants if you don't want immigrants that will vote for Democrats.

I'm not sure what your point is in arguing that all Americans are equally American, whatever that means.

Because there are so many dog whistles used when talking about this issue that usually are just a stand-in for racism.

These accusations are belittling and removing agency from people on multiple levels by saying democrats import immigrants, that immigrants who become citizens shouldn't have a say in how this country is governed, and that immigrants vote for democrats for any reason beyond their political policies.

How does it remove agency from Democrats to suggest that their party supports immigration of certain demographics for their own political benefit?

How does it remove agency from immigrants to point out that, as a group, they have tended to vote for one party over another, and to speculate that said tendency will continue in the future?

I'm not really understanding your point, I think.

Indeed, but great-grandparent's assertions that said votes are reliably democratic are nonsense. Cuban-Americans tend to vote Republican (ask Marco Rubio), there are plenty of other Hispanics who vote Republican (ask Rafael "Ted" Cruz), and in fact, in the 2020 elections, Republicans have picked up votes in all sorts of immigrant communities (all the more remarkable, in my opinion, because it's hard to think how much less welcoming the party could be to immigrants).

And some of the most rabid Trump supporters are recent immigrants (cf the Epoch Times' role in the last years, or the fact that one of the arrested Capitol rioters, Yevgenya Malimon, mother of an Oregon Republican party official, needed a Russian interpreter at her arraignment).

Think of other right wing voices in the US: Peter Thiel (first generation immigrant), Ron Unz (second generation), Roosh V (second generation).

Meanwhile, one of the key demographics for Biden's win in Arizona was high turnout among — Native Americans, the Final Boss of non-immigrants.

>Indeed, but great-grandparent's assertions that said votes are reliably democratic are nonsense.

They seem pretty reasonable to me, having looked at the numbers.

The Cuban community is the only community of fairly recent immigrants of which I'm aware that doesn't reliably vote for democrats, on the whole. Outside of Florida, their votes do not make Hispanic votes in general swing toward republicans.

Hispanic votes for republicans may have increased this year, but they are still absolutely nowhere near 50/50.

My understanding of the Epoch Times is that it's run by anti-CCP Chinese, and not very representative of Asians in general.

Listing single individuals is not relevant when the topic is how a community votes.

> The Cuban community is the only community of fairly recent immigrants of which I'm aware that doesn't reliably vote for democrats

Vietnamese Americans tend to vote Republican as well, and until the Trump era, so did Filipino Americans: https://asiamattersforamerica.org/articles/key-statistics-on...

> Hispanic votes for republicans may have increased this year, but they are still absolutely nowhere near 50/50.

Sure, but I find it remarkable that they increased vote share AT ALL while running on a fairly explicitly anti-Hispanic immigration platform.

> My understanding of the Epoch Times is that it's [...] not very representative of Asians in general.

But apparently quite influential in some language communities.

I'm not arguing that recent immigrants do not, overall, predominantly vote Democratic. But I think that behavior is not nearly as immutable as this discussion suggests. Many immigrants (a) come to the US in search of economic opportunities and (b) have somewhat more conservative personal values than their US-born peers. So they should be quite amenable to some flavors of Republicanism.

Russian too. Many of them watch Russian state TV at home, which is heavy on pro-Trump, anti-american propaganda.