N.Y.'s newest power players: Immigrant voters emerge as a key swing bloc

When some people think of immigrants, they think of illegal residents. But there are many legal immigrants who are citizens and vote responsibly and wisely. Some vote as a bloc, especially when they are new voters. Political candidates must work with them and listen to them. - - Donna Poisl

By Errol Louis

One of the most important races in America - Tuesday's neck-and-neck special election to fill the upstate congressional seat left vacant by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand - could be decided by an increasingly powerful, often-overlooked constituency: immigrant voters.

That would be sweet irony in a country where, all too often, immigrants are treated as an afterthought at best, a menace at worst.

It may come as a shock to those who are obsessed with illegal immigrants that there are lots of legal immigrants who have dreams, brains, citizenship - and, increasingly, the political power that comes with the right to vote.

In the 20th District, which stretches from Hyde Park north to Saranac Lake, "there's almost 10,000 Latino voters and 3,000 or 4,000 Asian voters," many of them immigrants, says Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, a statewide coalition of more than 200 groups.
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