Coalition Plans to Register 500,000 Recent Immigrants to Vote

Washington, DC -- A national coalition of immigrant rights groups, ethnic organizations, and community and leadership organizations Thursday announced a plan to register half-a-million new voters from the ranks of recent immigrants for the 2008 election.

The We Are America Alliance will work in 13 states to register voters and conduct get-out-the-vote efforts on Election Day, participants said. The effort is targeting people age 25 and under, new citizens and eligible but infrequent voters. These voters historically have been overlooked by campaigns and susceptible to being disenfranchised.

The We Are America Alliance partner organizations have fought for the rights of immigrants in their respective communities, but this year they are coming together to make voter engagement their number one priority, said Holli Holiday, WAAA Executive Director.

"We will be touching over 1 million immigrant voters going into the fall election and encouraging them to vote come November," said Erica Bernal, senior director of civic engagement for the national Association of Latino Elected Officials Education Fund. "We will spend over $10 million turning out the immigrant vote. This is unprecedented."