Election 2020

Meet Election 2020’s Newest Voting Bloc: Kids of Undocumented Immigrants

Police and ICE radicalized her as a young child and now? She organizes voters.

Demonstrators protest Trump administration policy that enables federal agents to separate undocumented migrant children from their parents at the border on June 5, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Nina S. was 15 when a Milwaukee police officer threatened to report her undocumented mother to ICE during a traffic stop. Nina and her younger siblings are U.S. citizens and their mother had been raising them alone since their father died seven years earlier. They risked losing their one remaining parent.

In the end, the officer issued Nina’s mom a ticket. But the experience turned Nina into an activist. Today, as a first-time voter and sophomore at Marquette University, she is on a mission: to register other new voters, share her story, and ensure that everyone at Marquette — from her classmates to closest friends — understands the consequences of next month’s election.

Nina is part of a growing movement of first-time voters from mixed-status families for whom immigration policy is driving political participation. These young people stand at the intersection of key demographics — Generation Z, Hispanic voters. and faith groups to name a few. Their activism could make all the difference on November 3rd. In Wisconsin, young organizers from mixed status families and communities have reached out to…