This election cycle, immigrant-rights organizations in Arizona pulled out all the stops to get out the vote in immigrant communities and communities of color.
Aliento, an organization that works to protect the rights of DACA recipients and undocumented people, held multiple campaigns this election cycle to encourage voting in communities that traditionally haven’t flocked to the polls in high numbers.
Aliento’s founder and CEO Reyna Montoya said 200 volunteers signed up to make over 2,000 calls and knock on over 1,000 doors on election day to remind people to vote.
“(Volunteers) had this 18-year-old who didn’t even know it was Election Day. We got them their poll location, and that person ended up voting,” Montoya said.
Aliento also led a local, nonpartisan campaign for Maricopa county, with the aim of increasing voter turn-out of Latinos and young people, and ended up mobilizing 25,000 voters.
The aim of the “Aliento Votes!” campaign was to educate the public on how to vote, and ease the fears immigrant communities may have about voting, keeping in mind their friends and family members who are unable to vote.
Montoya also spoke about her personal feelings regarding President-elect Joe Biden’s win, emphasizing that her personal beliefs were her own, not necessarily those of Aliento.
“We definitely can catch our breath,” she said. “At the same time, we know there’s so much work to be done in order to ensure that immigrants have an opportunity to live without fear.”
The Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies have been a source of much anxiety in immigrant communities over the last four years.
President Trump has been criticized for his asylum policy revamp, which makes it more challenging for migrants to qualify for asylum and forces asylum-seekers to wait in dangerous Mexican border towns for their immigration hearing, under the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols.
DACA recipients had reason to be worried about their futures in the U.S. The Trump administration has repeatedly attacked the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides legal status for qualifying undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
About 23,900 of the nation’s 700,000 DACA recipients reside in Arizona, according to the American Immigration Council.
Montoya also talked about her thoughts about what local elections could mean for immigrant communities in Arizona.
“(Mark Kelly) in his victory speech that he said he supports Dreamers, that he supports immigration, but he also said he supports border security,” Montoya said. “I think it’s going to be really interesting to see if he is going to be working and governing more like Senator Sinema.”
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, elected to represent Arizona in 2019, has been criticized by other Democrats for being too conservative.
Poder in Action, another immigrant rights organization, worked hard to make sure immigrants, Latinos and young people showed up to vote.
Viridiana Hernandez, Poder in Action’s executive director, said that this election was a step in the right direction.
“There was a lot of educational workshops and training, but there were also phone calls, texts and going and creating events for people to come get help,” Hernandez said.
She also spoke about immigration in regards to Biden’s win this election, and said that her views are her own and do not reflect those of Poder in Action.
She emphasized that just because Biden won the election doesn’t mean that immigration policies will automatically be better. Joe Biden was the Vice President for an administration that deported so many immigrants that then-President Obama earned the nickname “Deporter-in-Chief” from immigrant advocates.
“I don’t trust that it will just be better, but I do trust that there’s going to be a lot of organizations and a lot of people ready to hold Biden accountable,” Hernandez said.
“He won in Arizona and that was because of the work of many communities of color, and a lot of immigrant families who have been fighting in Arizona for a long time as well.”
Regardless of which candidate won, there’s still work to be done over the next four years as an organization, she said.
“For Poder in Action, regardless of who’s in office, we continue. We have to continue fighting and holding politicians accountable, both Democrats and Republicans,” she said.
Contact the reporter at cdfries@asu.edu.
