JACKSONVILLE, Fla — The days are counting down that you can vote in the 2022 midterms and now there's a push to make sure immigrants who are now naturalized American citizens exercise that right.
On Thursday evening voting rights groups and a variety of organizations that work with immigrants are bringing attention to this issue with a 'get out the vote' event at the Istanbul Center on Jacksonville's Southside at 6:00 p.m.
New citizens are a voting block that may be voting for the first time. Basma Alawee, national campaign director for We Are All America and executive director of WeaveTales, is educating new naturalized Americans about their right to vote and making sure they have access.
"This is one of the things that I'm really thankful for is being able to cast my ballot to elect people who could be supportive of communities like mine," Alawee said.
Alawee's organization We Are All America is involved with the National Partnership for New Americans, which finds Florida gained more than 400,000 newly naturalized Americans between 2016 and 2020. Alawee is one of them.
"I actually grew up in Baghdad, Iraq," she said. "We always had one person who everyone needs to vote for and if you don't vote for it, your family might be really threatened or being killed."
Florida is a top state for where naturalized Americans live. Data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services shows Miami is the number one city and Florida has the second highest number of naturalized Americans, only behind California.
"We have a really, really diverse community in Jacksonville," Alawee said. "We want to make sure that there is no barriers that could be a gap for community really to cast their ballots."
Alawee's focus right now is educating new voters. She says when she first became a citizen she didn't know she needed to register to vote. She says language barriers are often obstacles for new Americans to exercise their right to vote.
"Hopefully that's something we can see in Florida is having the ballots provided in different languages to make sure that there's no barrier for people to vote," Alawee said.
Newly naturalized citizens are invited to come ask questions and hear from other immigrants at the event Thursday. It will be from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Istanbul Center, 2032 Southside Boulevard in Jacksonville.