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Immigration Shifts Political Power

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Immigration shifts political power in the United States – without a single immigrant having to vote.

Seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and thus votes in the Electoral College are apportioned among the states based on each one’s total population — not by the number of citizens or legal residents. The Center for Immigration Studies today released two reports explaining how this works, which are the subject of this week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy.

The first report examines how the enormous scale of legal and illegal immigration in recent decades has redistributed House seats and electoral votes to high-immigration states, which provides a net benefit to Democrats.

The second report looks at congressional districts, and shows how immigration redistributes representation from districts comprised primarily of U.S. citizens to districts with large non-citizen populations. This too has a significant partisan dimension, but it has nothing to do with non-citizens possibly voting illegally.

“Because of the way reapportionment and redistricting work, immigration, including illegal immigration, redistributes political power in Washington,” said Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research and lead author of both reports. He added, “This redistribution is directly proportional to the scale of legal and illegal immigration and exists independent of whether or how immigrants themselves vote.”

Host

Mark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Guest

Steven Camarota is the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies.

Related

Press Release

Estimating the impact of legal and illegal immigration on apportionment and political influence in the U.S. House and Electoral College

How Non-Citizens Impact Political Representation and the Partisan Makeup of the U.S. House of Representatives

How Many Non-Citizens Would Have to Vote to Affect the 2024 Presidential Election?

Intro MontageVoices in the opening montage:

  • Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.
  • Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.
  • President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.
  • Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.
  • Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.
  • Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.
  • Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.
  • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.
  • Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.
  • Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.
  • Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".
Host:
Mark Krikorian