North Texas immigrants who cannot vote want their voices to be heard in this election

Susana Garcia calls herself a ‘mamá de la comunidad’ – a mother of the community.

Through her Facebook group “Comunidad Rifas Y Mas,” her Northwest Dallas home serves as a hub for community gatherings in Spanish. What started as a collective of seven moms during the pandemic has now grown to more than 500 members participating in community events and fundraisers.

But when it comes to elections, Garcia feels like she and others have been left out. She is from Mexico and has lived in the US for years, but is not yet a citizen – and cannot vote. She follows the candidates on Spanish-language media.

“They didn’t think about us that much,” she said in Spanish. “We are a community that also has a voice.”

She still finds ways to be civically involved: Garcia said voting is mandatory in her house. She ensures that her five adult children vote.

“I always tell them that they represent my voice… not just for me, but for the people around me who don’t have that opportunity, or who don’t know the importance of voting,” Garcia said.

Garcia not only encourages her children to vote, she also encourages her husband, who became naturalized nearly three years ago.

“The first thing I told him was that not only would he have the blessing of becoming a citizen, but he would also have the opportunity to vote and make a decision about who would represent us,” she says. said.

As Election Day approaches, one group that has been largely left out of the conversation is immigrants who are not citizens. Immigrants make up almost a quarter of Dallas’ population, according to an American newspaper analysis by the American Immigration Councilbut it is unknown how many citizens are citizens and can vote.

Immigrants who are not citizens have a stake in politics, said Lorena Tule-Romain, co-founder of ImmSchools, a nonprofit that provides resources to undocumented students and families. They work in the US and pay taxes – but that is often overlooked in discussions about immigration.

“These are very necessary areas that proactively contribute to our economy,” she said. “And so some of that conversation is not happening at the political level.”

She said it’s not that people don’t want to vote, but that there are several challenges, including immigration policies that don’t allow people to take the path to citizenship and become voters. She called this ‘structural oppressive policy’.

“Unfortunately, we have an immigration system that is so outdated,” she said. “The last major reform took place in the 1980s.”

Ndayishimiye Innocent came to Dallas as a refugee 16 years ago and knows how difficult the path to citizenship can be. He is co-founder and chairman of the nonprofit Dallas Burundian Community.

He said there are many barriers that keep many in his community from becoming voting citizens.

“To become a voter if you were not born here, it is not easy,” he said. “You have to go through a lot of procedures, including paying money and taking a citizenship test.

“That doesn’t apply to everyone here.”

He said immigrant communities across the U.S. and the world are paying attention to this year’s election.

“They want to see candidates who base their political positions not just on a national level, even on a global level, because most of us have families everywhere,” he said.

Voting isn’t the only way to get involved, said Luis Macias Barrientos, a community advocate and doctoral candidate at UT Arlington. He believes this is the least you can do in terms of citizen participation.

Macias Barrientos became a DACA recipient in 2012, which offers him some protection in the U.S. but not full citizenship.

“There are also other ways for people to get involved. You can make your politicians listen to you,” he said. “I still went to my representative’s office to talk to her about topics that were important to me. I have also worked on several campaigns. I blocked.’

Still, he said undocumented people who don’t have driver’s licenses make it challenging to become socially involved.

“You’re putting yourself in danger just by driving,” he said. “All these issues just pile on top of each other and it makes it very difficult for us to even become community participants.”

Tule-Romain said anti-immigrant rhetoric in political debates also has a chilling effect on communities here.

“Our families tend to withdraw and be a little more careful about their spaces and how they navigate spaces, or where they show up in spaces, because it increases the fear of deportation,” she said. “Their sense of security becomes more concerning than at other times when immigration is not at the center of the conversations.”

For Everardo “Ever” Amaya, advocacy is his way of making an impact in his community – and not just during elections. Amaya is a community attorney who grew up in Pleasant Grove and lives with his husband in Southeast Oak Cliff’s Cedar Crest neighborhood. Like Macias Barrientos, Amaya is a DACA recipient.

Amaya previously worked at Dallas City Hall and knows how to report things to the city and ask for things like speed bumps. He teaches others in his community how to do the same.

“It’s not just about focusing on the big things that happen during the election,” he said. ‘Even when there are no elections, things always happen.

‘Can the children in your neighborhood walk to certain places? Can they play outside and feel safe? Can the elderly use their wheelchair? Are there sidewalks? Are there too many stray dogs running around?”

His husband was recently replaced and registered about 50 new voters in the LGBTQ neighborhood of Oak Lawn.

“I told him, you know, this is happening just within our sphere of influence,” he said. “Hopefully there are thousands of people doing exactly the same thing. This is how change happens.”

Priscilla Rice is KERA’s community reporter. Do you have a tip? Email her at [email protected].

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