This post was written and reported by freelance contributor Jose Alonso Muñoz through our Daily Kos freelance program.
As a recipient of protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, I’m not eligible to vote in the midterm elections. Even though I’ve been in the U.S. since I was 3 months old and consider myself politically engaged and informed, my voice doesn’t matter at the ballot box. But all across the country, young voters—like my younger sister, Zaira, a 19-year-old college student from Minnesota—have the power to change that, and use their vote to show solidarity with undocumented immigrants.
President Trump has made it clear he’s leading from a place of xenophobia and fear-mongering around immigrants, undocumented or otherwise. He continues to criminalize the migrant caravan seeking refuge in the United States, both with his decision to send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and with his recent racist political ad. Earlier this year, he ripped children from their parents with his zero-tolerance separation policy at the border.
Last week, the president falsely claimed he’d be able to eradicate the 14th Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship, through executive action. The 14th Amendment granted Zaira her citizenship, which allows her to cast her ballot for the first time, so she is directly in the crosshairs of Trump’s racist aim to rewrite the Constitution. Now he’s taken his mass deportation agenda a step further. Trump’s Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to rule on DACA, putting hundreds of thousands of young immigrants like me at risk for deportation.
Through all of this, the onus of responsibility seems to elude him. Accountability never seems to fall on this man or his administration, no matter the lengths they go to evade the truth and use immigrants like me as scapegoats.
A popular narrative is that young people just don’t care about voting. An NBC poll found that only one-third of millennials would definitely vote in this midterm election. My sister defied this statistic over the weekend when she not only registered to vote for the first time, but also enthusiastically cast her ballot early. My entire life, I’ve been unable to participate in the act of casting a ballot, one of the cornerstones of our democracy. Last week, in the lead-up to my sister casting her ballot for the first time, I had the opportunity to help her get everything she needed in order to register to vote.
Zaira called me right before she headed into the building where she would eventually cast her first vote.
After I helped her find her sample ballot and research the various races she’d be weighing in on, she was ready and determined. She wasn’t just casting a vote. In many ways, it felt more personal than that. This was her symbolically taking a stand, pledging to support undocumented immigrants like me, and our mom, in the most direct way possible: with a vote that denounces the hateful, divisive rhetoric of this administration by electing politicians who stand with immigrants.
While I felt immense pride for my sister, I’m not naive enough to believe that her vote, however powerful its motivation, will be enough to turn the tide away from Trump. What will turn the tide, however, is other young eligible voters who decide to build their collective power, along with my sister, and elect leaders who will hold Trump accountable.
In my home state of Minnesota, there are 45 eligible voters for every DREAM Act-eligible immigrant, according to a new analysis by the Center for American Progress. It’s evident that young people like Zaira have the power to send a firm message to this administration with their collective votes. They have the power, should they choose to use it.
After Zaira was done voting, she proudly sent me a picture with her “I Voted” sticker. When I asked her how her first time voting went, she told me it was “weird.” It was weird for me as well, knowing the little kid I used to babysit was using her voice not only as a young person, but also as a woman of color and as a way to show solidarity. Her vote was telling me that when I announce I’m undocumented and here to stay, in the only place I’ve ever known as home, she’ll be right there by my side.
Jose Alonso Muñoz is a writer and communications professional based in Washington, D.C, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He writes about queer issues, immigration, TV, and pop culture. His work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Into, and Them. Follow him on Twitter.