A vice president with the nation’s largest labor union, the AFL-CIO, is eager for a new immigration center in Jersey City, N.J. to get started on its work of churning out new Democratic voters.
The labor executive, Tefere Gebre, spoke Tuesday at the opening of the We Are One New Jersey, along with Democratic U.S. Sens. Robert Menendez and Cory Booker, according to The Jersey Journal.
The new facility, which the AFL-CIO says is the state’s “first labor-led naturalization and community center,” will provide 10-week courses for legal immigrants seeking to gain citizenship. The center will also provide free legal counseling and help new citizens register to vote.
While the labor group states that the goal of the center is to empower immigrants to “fully engage in the democratic process,” Gebre said the group has something more specific in mind: He hopes the center will help “turn Republican-leaning electorates a little more Democratic,” The Jersey Journal reported.
The AFL-CIO is generally aligned with the Democratic party, but it is rare to hear officials in the organization openly admit that they hope voters will cast ballots for the party.
Gebre gave the specific example of Orange County, Calif., where he said 38 percent of the vote went to Bill Clinton during his 1996 re-election bid. The county went 45 percent for Obama in 2012.
“That didn’t just happen by itself,” Gebre said. “People worked on it, like you guys are here, starting something today.”
“We need your voice in the daily running of our country,” said Gebre, a native of Ethiopia. “We need your voice to go to the polling place and vote, to be counted on in decisions that we make in this country.”
“In addition to that obvious fact, this is also good for the immigrants themselves,” Gebre told the crowd.