After weeks of sitting in a summer political science course, something actually captured my attention. No, it wasn’t a riveting section of game theory or an argument for the necessity of a bicameral legislature – it was a real live rhetorical fail.
Now, as an eighteen-year-old female, I fall into two groups who have not always had the right to vote. Plus, I don’t own any land – I live in a tiny dorm room with three boxes of books and a suitcase of clothes. The nineteenth and twenty-sixth amendments, respectively, allowed women and people under twenty-one to vote, and few will argue that these weren’t steps towards progress. But what’s next?
In “The Case for Immigrant Voting Rights,” an essay published in 2009, Ron Hayduk proposes that noncitizens (or “immigrants, foreign born, aliens, émigrés, refugees, asylees, green card-holders, newcomers”) should be given the same rights as American citizens to vote not only on the local level, but for state and federal elections. He even hints at – though does not explicitly state, perhaps because he isn’t completely ignorant, just mostly – giving voting rights to “undocumented” (illegal) immigrants because they constitute an increasingly large sector of our country’s population.
Apparently, noncitizens are the new women, or black population, if you prefer. Apparently, they deserve the same rights as the other citizens of the United States, who have been born or naturalized here. Apparently, just because it’s “legal” and we tax noncitizens, they should be able to vote “right off the plane.” Apparently, allowing noncitizens to vote won’t make them circumvent the citizenship process, but actually expedite it. Apparently, allowing noncitizens to vote will benefit everyone, because “we all have the same interests in safe streets, good schools, affordable housing, health care, and good jobs.” Apparently, all those things are free in America, and aren’t the cause of most of the divisions between political parties. Good to know.
Boulder, the illegitimate flowerchild of my home state, has always been known for its hybrid-car-complete-with-bumper-stickers-on-every-political-topic-imaginable-driving liberal environmentalists, even introduced a measure not just to allow noncitizens to vote, but also to allow noncitizens to serve on city boards and commissions.
Where do we have to draw the line?
So America, it’s okay when immigrants are taking jobs that no American ever dreams of doing, but not when they move towards white-collar professions? Is that the line? What about when noncitizens start to take political office? Change our legislation? What happens when the proverbial slippery slope actually turns into a huge, out-of-control avalanche, killing everyone in its wake?
Of course, drawing the line brings us to another of America’s problems. If the melting pot doesn’t want to select a national language, can we even demand that immigrants be literate to vote, instead of simply memorizing a group of characters to further the interest of their group? Hayduk also asserts that requiring immigrants to have some political or civil knowledge prior to voting is unfair because much of the America populace is ignorant on such topics. For once, I am going to agree with him, at least partially. Americans are ignorant. That should not give free reign for anyone else to be ignorant; just because you see a group of people jumping off a cliff next to a McDonalds doesn’t mean you should get in line for a Big Mac. More than anything, this should be a cry for help to the government about our education system.
Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Just because allowing noncitizens to vote is technically legal, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t draw a line in the soil.
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