Latino Civic Engagement Key in Achieving Immigration Reform

By Ben Monterroso, National Executive Director, Mi Familia Vota Education Fund 

America is all about opportunities and giving a chance to those who want to achieve the American Dream. Our government cannot continue turning a blind eye on hard working, taxpaying immigrants who are here to provide a better life for their families and make America better throughtheir contributions.

We urge Congress to create a real solution for the 11 million aspiring citizens living in the U.S. and enact a commonsenseimmigration reform that comports with our national values and includes a straight pathway to citizenship. We have waited too long for our elected officials to fix our current broken immigration system and address the needs of our economy and of our U.S. and immigrant families.

Although we have seen some progress on this issue since the beginning of the year, there is still a lot of work to be done, and we need to keep members of Congress accountable on an issue that the American people overwhelmingly support. Mi Familia Vota Education Fund is not putting its civic engagement work on the back burner; we are maintaining our citizenship and voter registration programs to deliver new Latino voters in 2014. The Latino vote is here to say and our communitywill support those who take a leadership role in the fight for commonsense immigration reform.

In 2012, 12.5 million Latinos cast their vote in the presidential elections. And even when change doesn’t happen overnight, it’s reminding the Latino community of the positive outcomes that came from their civic participation in November and reminding them what is at stake – helping them understand that through voting, they are taking responsibility for their future and that of their children.

Last year, Mi Familia Vota Education Fund, along with our partners, registered 83,198 Latino voters and collected 21,647 Permanent Early Voting Lists or Vote by Mail forms in just a couple months. We also opened up 15 offices across six states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Texas, with a field team of over 600 people.

We firmly believe that only when and if all of us participate in the elections, encourage others to get engaged in the electoral process, and spread the word on how our community can get help, will we be one step closer to a better America by weighing on key issues that impact our community.

With 50,000 Latinos turning 18 every 30 seconds, we will continue our work to build a stronger infrastructure ofLatino civic participation across the country and achieve a commonsense immigration reform.

We know we are building momentum for this historic moment in our community and we expect to see legislative proposals on immigration reform that include a direct path to citizenship in March. We are eager to keep moving forward. As I like to say, “¡Dale Gas!”