Immigration and Civic Engagement
In the past decades, we have witnessed a huge influx of immigration in the developed countries of western Europe and North America. Immigration has changed the demographic constitution of these democratic countries to a large extent. It has also brought a shock to the political landscape. New social cleavages evolved. Politicians created new agendas and debated these issues. Legislators face new challenges. However, the biggest challenge of immigration, to me, is whether these new citizens are willing to and capable of participating in the democratic process. Unfortunately, the reality is, the civic participation rate of immigrants is lower than that of naturalized citizens in most democratic countries. This phenomenon poses potential problems, which I will elaborate below.
According to a 2015 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in all OECD members, among all foreign-born immigrants who have resided in host countries for more than 10 years, only an average of 27% have acquired nationality and are eligible to participate in elections. The rate is higher in countries that have easier naturalization processes and is lower in countries with complicated naturalization processes. In the U.S, only 44% of Latin American immigrants acquired nationality. This data indicates that there is still a large portion of immigrants who aren’t allowed to participate in elections in democratic countries. In addition, even for those immigrants who have acquired nationality, they aren’t willing to participate in politics compared to naturalized citizens. Surveys show that an average of 75 percent of immigrants vote in OECD countries. The number for naturalized citizens is 80 percent. The lowest immigrant voting rate is among southern European countries and the U.S., at around 60 percent.
Now we know that a big portion of immigrants don’t vote, either because they can’t, or they won’t. Why is this a problem? The answer is simple. In a democracy, without civic participation, there will be no representation. In the U.S for instance, the Constitution defines liberty in a negative tone. The government only possesses legitimate powers when citizens delegate. Authority does not have a natural duty to assist its citizens and improve their welfares. The citizens are responsible for themselves. They are expected to participate in electing political representatives who will promote their interests. Therefore, if citizens don’t vote, no one will step up and represent them, and the government won’t allocate resources to help them. The underrepresentation of immigrants may cause a series of social problems such as higher unemployment rate, higher crime rate, poorer neighborhoods, more segregated communities, and less education among immigrants, especially those from lower-income countries. Other than pragmatic problems, there is also an ideological fallacy. As U.S. Supreme Court judge Stephen Breyer puts it: “the biggest threat to the Constitution and to democracy is that people stop believing in them.” When more and more people start to resort to community and family to solve their cleavages, the legitimacy of a democratic government is undermined.
Now you can see that lower civic engagement among immigrants is a potential threat to democracy. You may ask: why does this phenomenon happen? Why don’t immigrants vote as much? Moreover, how should we solve this?
There are several possible reasons why immigrants vote less. First, language serves as a high threshold. According to a test conducted by PIACC, in the U.S., 41 percent of immigrants score at or below the lowest level of English literacy. This means 41 percent of immigrants don’t even know basic functional English. It would be too demanding to expect them to participate in complex political processes. Second, unlike naturalized citizens who have received proper civic education since youth, the immigrants are simply unaware of the political reality in their host countries. Few of them received systematic constitutional or civic education. And few fully understand the legislative process and political structures. One must also acquire abundant knowledge of political candidates to make electoral decisions. The immigrants may not possess channels to this information. Third, immigrants may lack political participation experience in their home countries. Many immigrants come from non-democratic countries. Voting is a new and challenging experience for them. They may be scared off by the complexity and intensity of its process. I remember visiting a voting site in Vermont during the 2016 election. As an international student, I was intimidated by the crowd, the intensity, and the aftermath of it. I was afraid to express my opinions after hearing all those heated conversations and debates. Therefore, immigrants may simply lack the necessary knowledge, skills, and experience to participate in politics.
As you can tell, one can’t simply expect immigrants to vote since it’s not only a matter of willingness. Civic engagement requires knowledge, skills, and experience, which immigrants possess relatively less sufficiently comparing to naturalized citizens. The government needs to provide better integration programs for the incomers. They need to ensure immigrants are aware of their civic duties and teach them the necessary skills to fulfill these duties. The most fundamental one will be language proficiency, which is the steppingstone for political participation. Then, the programs should teach immigrants about political systems in host countries, with a special focus on civil rights, judicial and electoral processes. The programs should let immigrants understand democratic values. Furthermore, they should offer immigrants “hands-on” experience on voting, perhaps through mock-election. Unlike regular democratic processes, the implementation of this program needs to be top-down. The government needs to reach out to the immigrant community and incorporate them into the existing political culture. Only through this can democratic values be preserved as new blood come in.
