Posted on 07/02/2006 9:45:17 PM PDT by garbageseeker
LOS ANGELES - A potentially powerful expatriate voting bloc likely will have little effect on Mexico's presidential race because of the illegal status of many who live in the United States.
Thousands of Mexican expatriates streamed into border towns Sunday to vote in their homeland's elections and others were allowed to cast absentee ballots for the first time. Still, many more were disenfranchised by their fear of crossing the border as undocumented residents.
"I really wanted to vote, but I don't have papers so I couldn't go to Mexico" to get a voter card, said Adriana Lopez, 27, a housewife and illegal immigrant in Orange County, south of Los Angeles.
Still, others expressed hope that more would participate next time.
"The main thing is, the door has been opened" for expatriates to vote, Jesus Hernandez, 47, one of only 13,500 Mexicans in California who sent in ballots. "Later, we can reconstruct the procedures to make it easier in the future."
When Mexico's congress passed a law last year extending suffrage to expatriates, Mexicans in the U.S. hailed it as overdue recognition of the billions of dollars they send home every year.
Their elation faded, however, when they learned that voters would need a current electoral card, and that the application deadline was nearly six months before the election. Furthermore, anyone needing a new card had to apply in Mexico — a risky chore for an illegal immigrant.
"They couldn't go to Tijuana to get their voting card ... so now they can't vote here or there," said Eduardo Ruiz, president of the Los Angeles-based Federacion de Aguas Calientes, which organized weekly trips to Tijuana last year to help people apply.
Of the estimated 4.2 million eligible Mexican voters living abroad, only about 41,000, or 1 percent, requested absentee ballots.
Mexicans said the new president could play a vital role in helping millions of undocumented workers obtain legal residency. Outgoing President Vicente Fox traveled to the United States in recent months to encourage Congress to reform immigration policy.
"It's important for the new president to fight for rights for Mexicans in this country," said Araceli Rodriguez, of Florida City, Fla., who voted with an absentee ballot. "We're always fighting hard to make it, but we've been living under more pressure, more strain."
Some expatriates argue that more could be done to help them vote.
"If they really wanted us to vote, they would let us do it at a consulate," said Gustino Fermin, 47, who said he didn't have time to return to Mexico for a voting card.
Patricio Ballados, expatriate vote coordinator for Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, said the agency would consider recommending to Congress that Mexican nationals be allowed to renew their voting cards at consulates.
Apathy also is an issue. Some said that they came to the United States because Mexican governments has failed to create economic opportunities at home, and that they didn't see that changing anytime soon.
"No matter who they elect, the corruption will continue," said Amelia Juantes, 23, who didn't even attempt to get an absentee ballot.
Funny how these journalists can always find illegals for their sob stories (I GIVE a rat's ass about them not being able to vote), yet our Federal Governement can't.
Is she right?
Si senor
Uh...yeah!
Start stocking up on canned goods, guns, ammo, and get in good with The Big Guy Upstairs if this administration CONTINUES to play lovey-dovey with Mexico (ESPECIALLY in regards to immigration) even if they make a move to the far left, which I fear, they may.
But. . . but. . . you didn't worry about not "having papers" when you sneanked in here!
"I really wanted to vote, but I don't have papers so I couldn't go to Mexico" to get a voter card, said Adriana Lopez, 27, a housewife and illegal immigrant in Orange County, south of Los Angeles.
BUAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHA
Mexico's President Vicente Fox shows his ink-stained thumb after casting his vote in the general elections at a polling station in "El Pipila" school in Mexico City. Mexicans voted in an election that could put a leftist leader at the US doorstep or keep the Latin American country on the conservative track that has won Washington's praise.(AFP/Omar Torres)
Oh the Beautiful Irony
It's Bush's Fault.
Because he and the Senate failed to ramrod the "comprehensive (amnesty) package"
through and give all the illegals immediate unrestricted travel privileges.
Yeah, and free round-trip airline tickets to Mexico.
I wouldn't be suprised if some in The Los Angeles Times would agree with
that proposition.
ping
Already stocked.
Funny, before 9/11 and Katrina, folks thought you were odd if your family was prepared for disasters.
What a strange use of the word disenfranchised, for a people who voluntarily left their country, illegally entered another country and complain about not being able to vote in the country they left because then, they could not get back into the country they should not have been in, in the first place.
LOL
Bilingual huh?
As we American patriots gather to celebrate our independence as a great nation, we are threatened by an invading force, and we should be reminded how easily our freedoms, and our way of life, can be taken away from us: Marcus Tullius Cicero Roman Statesman Speech in the Roman Senate - 42 BC "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. "
I really wanted you to also and then stay out of my country. As we are in the same county, your theft of tax dollars makes me see red from rage.
LOL.
Funny. But the Mehican government will give out matricular counselor cards like candy to illegals throughout the US.
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