Wave Of ‘New American Voters’ In NJ Will Flex Muscles In 2022 Election

NEW JERSEY — Some are calling them the “New American Voters,” and according to immigration advocates in New Jersey, they are a growing force that may help sway crucial elections across the state this November.

On Tuesday, a coalition of groups released a report that claims New Jersey is home to 177,890 newly naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in the 2022 mid-term election. The new voters were naturalized between 2016 and 2020. Read the full report and see its methodology here.

Advocates said the growing bloc of voters is multi-racial, multi-generational and geographically diverse – and most of them are women.

According to Tuesday’s report, about 44 percent are from North America and South America, 36 percent are from Asia, 11 percent are from Europe and 9 percent are from the African continent. Nearly 59 percent are under the age of 45-years-old, and more than 55 percent are female.

The New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area, which includes New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, has the state’s highest concentration of naturalized citizens, at nearly 3.9 million.

There are about 6.47 million registered voters in New Jersey as of Sept. 1, according to state election data. This includes 2.53 million Democrats, 1.52 million Republicans and 2.34 million people unaffiliated with any political party.

• See related article: New Jersey Is 4th 'Most-Diverse State' In America, Study Says

“As a new citizen voter in a swing district, I’m looking for leaders that will fight for good jobs and keep our immigrant neighbors and families safe – not handouts to corporations and a politics of hate and division,” said Eva Salcedo, a member of Make the Road New Jersey, one of the groups involved in the creation of the report.

But unlike Salcedo, other New American Voters may have to fight to exercise one of the most important rights in their new home country in time for the mid-term election, advocates say.

According to the coalition:

“Voter suppression and other systemic barriers keep many eligible New American Voters from exercising that right. Growing backlogs at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have created delays in processing citizenship applications: There are more than 10,000 pending in USCIS offices in New Jersey, with processing delays of up to 16.5 months. Access issues related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and language barriers have prevented many eligible voters from registering.”

In response, several New Jersey-based organizations are joining the New American Voters 2022 Campaign, a non-partisan, nationwide effort coordinated by the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) to encourage newly naturalized citizens to register and vote.

Henal Patel, director of the Democracy and Justice Program at the Newark-based New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, said that it’s crucial to consider the needs of these new voters and to “tear down the barriers” they face at the ballot box.

“We must pass same-day registration so they are not subject to our arbitrary voter registration deadline and a strong John Lewis Voting Rights Act that includes language access provisions,” Patel urged.

New Jersey isn’t the only state seeing a surge in newly naturalized voters. The 2022 mid-term election could see an estimated 5.19 million New American Voters across the U.S. who have naturalized in recent years, NPNA Executive Director Nicole Melaku said.

These people will be a “powerful political force,” but it’s a mistake to think that they all support the same issues – or that they’ll vote the same way, Melaku added.

“They’ll be drawn to the polls by a variety of issues, their votes informed by diverse political ideologies, experiences and backgrounds,” Melaku said. “Ensuring that these voters both register and vote is critical to ensuring a participatory, representative democracy.”

The report was a joint effort between Make the Road New Jersey, New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, New Jersey Institute of Social Justice, New Jersey Working Families Party, SEIU 32BJ, and the National Partnership for New Americans, Service Employees International Union, and the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California San Diego.

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