Latino Voters and the SAVE Act

Latino voters overwhelmingly support requiring government-issued photo ID to vote. Polls conducted by Pew Research Center (2025) and CNN (2006) have independently confirmed that 82% of Latino voters in the United States approve such a requirement. According to CNN, about 85% of white voters agree, as well as 76% of black voters. The SAVE Act would codify in law the popular supermajority opinion on voter identification, but while the House has passed it multiple times, it has stalled in the Senate.

It should be no surprise that Latino voters support the key feature of the SAVE Act. First, immigrant voters highly value their citizenship and the right to vote that it conveys to them. It takes at least seven years of legal presence in the USA to become a citizen, and those who have gone through that process value what they learned and who they became in the process. They are proud and patriotic and zealous to preserve the system they have adopted and mastered. They do not take their rights as citizens lightly, and they do not want non-citizens to vote.

Second, immigrant voters highly value the rule of law, which they recognize as the main thing that makes the United States what it is – the best place in the world to work and build a prosperous and free life. While writing my book, “The New Pilgrims: How Immigrants are Renewing America’s Faith and Values,” I interviewed many immigrants who specifically explained that they moved to America for the purpose of coming under the rule of law. They understand that no justice, no equal protection under law, is possible without it. They can also articulate how lawlessness and cheating (la viveza criolla) undermine prosperity in their home countries. They understand that the land of the free and home of the brave persists because of America’s deep cultural commitment to obeying the law. They understand how illegal voting would undermine the very thing they value most about life in America.