Illegal Immigration Threatens Tidal Change In Black Politics
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, BlackNews.com Columnist
The tremor from the illegal immigration fight has shaken Democrats and Republicans. But it also threatens a tidal change in black politics. Though Latinos have displaced blacks as the nation’s biggest minority group, the popular notion lingers that they are years away from packing the political wallop of black voters and politicians. Language, citizenship, age, and lack of education supposedly prevent millions of legal and illegal Latino immigrants from muscling out blacks from the top spot in ethnic politics. The illegal immigration battle has shattered that myth.
In 2000, the 23 million blacks eligible to vote dwarfed the 13 million Latinos that were eligible to vote even though Latinos then had virtually reached parity with blacks in the population. More than one-third of the Latino population was less than 18 years old. Forty percent of Latinos that were of eligible voting age were non-citizens. Only 5 percent of blacks that were of voting age were non-citizens. But that is quickly changing. Since the 2000 election the number of Latinos of voting age and that are citizens has jumped. There are now an estimated 10 million Latino registered voters. That compares more favorably and evenly with the 15 million black voters in the 2004 election. The surge in registered voters is not the only shift that has changed ethnic politics in America. In past elections, the majority of the Latino vote was concentrated in California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. In the 2006 national elections, helped by the sharp increase in the number of legal and illegal immigrants in the Midwest and Northeastern states, the Latino vote will have national impact. MORE
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