Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) issued the following statement after Pew Research Center released a new report demonstrating that a record 10 percent of the nation’s electorate – 23 million Americans – are immigrants who will be eligible to vote in the 2020 elections.
In their report, Pew outlines how the number of eligible immigrant voters has increased by 93 percent since 2000. Hispanic and Asian immigrants make up the majority of the immigrant electorate, comprising 7.5 million and 6.9 million potential 2020 voters, respectively.
“I’m grateful to Pew for this important report which contains some startling findings,” Lieu said. “A record one in 10 voters are immigrants, which is more than enough to make a key difference in elections from President to school board. Of that number, 34 percent are Hispanic Americans and 31 percent are Asian Americans.
“The Pew report underscores something many of my colleagues in the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have been saying for some time: America is a nation of immigrants and the numbers of immigrants continue to grow. I’m both an immigrant and an elected official and I can tell you how foolish it would be to ignore or take immigrant communities for granted. This is especially true among Asian American voters, who are turning out with more strength and consistency in each successive election. A prior Pew report also showed a large surge in the number of Asian immigrants coming to the United States.
The one thing that no one can change, not Donald Trump, not the GOP, not xenophobes, is that with every passing year, the rest of America looks more like California, Texas, New York, and Florida.”
Read the full report at: https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/02/26/naturalized-citizens-make-up-record-one-in-ten-u-s-eligible-voters-in-2020
Congressman Lieu is a member of the House Foreign Affairs and House Judiciary Committees, and serves as a Co-Chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. Mr. Lieu is a veteran, having served on Active Duty in the Air Force. (Lieu.House.Gov)