The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) announced on Wednesday, October 17, 2012 that it has registered more than 4,000 naturalized citizens for voting in the next election. This is the largest number of immigrants it has registered to vote in the organization’s history.
Representatives of MIRA attended naturalization ceremonies in different parts of Massachusetts to find and register these new citizens to vote. Naturalized Americans represent 12 percent of voters in Massachusetts.
MIRA‘s Organizing Director Marcony Almeida said, ”Candidates have too often taken their immigrant constituents for granted, or worse, used them as scapegoats,”. He also stated, ”we wanted to empower new Americans to fight back by representing their own interests and those of their fellow immigrants at the ballot box.”