By Sarah Welf, Elena Maker-Castro and Tina Quills
The political power of immigrants is increasing in the United States.
The number of eligible immigrant voters nearly doubled from about 12 million in 2000 to more than 23 million in 2020.
Immigrant voters tend to be older than US-born voters, but immigrants between the ages of 18 and 37 still made up 20 percent of all immigrant voters in 2020.
We are a team of scholars and students from various disciplines and universities researching the civic development of young immigrants – and we believe it is important to recognize that young immigrants also play a major role in motivating older immigrants to vote, primarily by connecting with them through social media.
Our research shows that online sites and apps like Twitter are key to young immigrants — people born outside the United States and those who are second-generation immigrants — as ways to get involved in politics. Many young immigrants use social media to follow the news in their local communities, as well as in their countries of origin. They also use it to organize protests and encourage others to vote.
This is true even when these young people are not eligible to vote due to their immigration status.
major issue
Immigration is a key issue for many voters in the upcoming midterm elections. An August 2022 Pew Research poll found that nearly 50 percent of registered voters reported that immigration was “very important” to them in the November 2022 election.
Some Republican politicians, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others who are also on the verge of reelection, have focused on immigration in their campaigns by pointing to record numbers of immigrants crossing US borders. Republican politicians have also moved thousands of immigrants to liberal places like Washington, D.C., New York, and Massachusetts over the past several months.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s plan to reform the nation’s immigration system and provide a path for some 11 million undocumented residents to obtain citizenship remains stalled in Congress.
Over the past several years, though, young immigrants — people between the ages of 18 and 23 who were born in other countries, or whose parents were born — have helped lead national movements to provide a conditional pathway to citizenship for undocumented young immigrants, Which led to the passing of the year 2021 of the dream law. This policy gives millions of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children the right to remain in the country.
The DREAMer movement has relied heavily on social media to spread information and encourage people to take action. Building on the previous successes of immigrant youth in mobilizing their communities for political change, we believe that their online political participation could have implications for the mid-term of 2022.
crowd others
Our research study in 2020 explored how immigrant youth between the ages of 18 and 23 used social media to engage in politics. We captured 2,300 screenshots of political tweets from January to November 2020, drawn from a sample of 32 immigrant public Twitter feeds we found through national immigrant youth networks, such as United We Dream.
Based on the content of their profiles and Twitter posts, we were confident that they were all real immigrant youth residing in the United States, then we contacted them all via Twitter about the study, and the majority confirmed their age and immigrant status. We continued analyzing screenshots to identify trends in how young people participate politically online.
We also interviewed 11 people from the sample, further confirming that we recruited young people whose Twitter profiles accurately represent their true identities. Several of them indicated, either in their Twitter profiles and tweets or in interviews, that they were ineligible to vote due to the status of their documents.
We found that young immigrants use Twitter to educate their followers about political issues and processes in the United States and abroad — and to share personal online opportunities to protest or vote.
These young people appear to be deliberately targeting their own ethnic and regional communities in their social media.
For example, some young people in our June 2022 study invited their followers to translate educational resources on racial justice into different languages to share with their families.
Others provided voter registration guides in multiple languages, alerted their followers about political candidates who shared an ethnic or regional identity, or encouraged certain ethnic communities – such as South Asians – to vote.
In the interviews, young people also described bringing political conversations from their phones to the dinner table and discussing the news they read online with their parents.
Some participants also shared that they posted on social media with the express intention of changing the political views of their family members.
One person we interviewed in 2020 who was originally from the Philippines and Belize noted that he “realized the importance of educating people and having those tough conversations,” especially with his family and friends.
Valeria, a college student originally from Puerto Rico, explained how Facebook was a “family social media platform” where it raised awareness about political issues.
“The way I kind of look at it is at least I’m planting a seed, right? I’m planting an idea, at least helping others, at least,” Valeria, who also asked to use a pseudonym, said in a 2020 interview with our team that appeared in the 2022 study. Hear what’s going on.
From online sharing to offline sharing
Online political participation of immigrant youth reflects larger trends in the United States
Roughly 46 percent of American teens today use the Internet “almost constantly,” compared to just 24 percent who said the same in 2014.
Alongside this increase in internet use, more young people are using social media to educate others on social and political topics, hold politicians accountable and provide their followers with opportunities to take action through climate and political movements such as Friday for Future and Black Lives Matter.
Online political participation has important consequences for political behaviors offline.
In fact, nearly a quarter of adults in the United States reported that they changed their views on a political issue because of social media. It has also been proven that online political participation leads to more young people participating in protests and encouraging people to vote.
Our findings are consistent with previous research showing that immigrant youth politically educate and mobilize their families and community members.
A survey of people who were allowed to stay in the United States because of the DREAM Act before the 2020 election found that nearly 95 percent of them were planning to encourage family and friends to vote.
The online political participation of immigrant youth has several potential implications for the 2022 midterm elections.
First, as our 2022 study found, immigrant youth use social media to influence their parents’ views on political issues such as racial justice and teach them how to register to vote.
Because of the significant impact that immigrant voters can have on the 2022 midterm elections, particularly in swing states, the online political participation of immigrant youth can play a role in shaping the outcome of the election.
Sarah Welf is a doctoral student in social care at the University of California/Los Angeles. Elena Macer Castro is a doctoral student at the University of California/Los Angeles. Taina Quills is a doctoral student at the University of Virginia. Ph.D. Students Bethany Murray and J. Abigail Saavedra and Lamont Bryant, as well as three undergraduates, Kedar Garzon Gupta, Jaime Garcia and Aditi Rudra, and UCLA professors Laura Wray Lake are all members of the team that conducted research for the study. In this article. They wrote this piece for the conversation, where it first appeared.
Originally published at San Jose News Bulletin
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