For some newly naturalized Americans and young voters from immigrant families, this year's midterm election carries responsibilities that extend beyond their own futures. Alongside concerns about housing, student debt and the cost of raising children, they are weighing how their votes could affect relatives and others navigating the immigration system.
Nicole Solis-Sison, 34, is preparing to vote for the first time in New York City after becoming a citizen earlier this year. She arrived in Los Angeles at age seven with her family, who were fleeing the Philippine government. She initially expected to return home. After Philippine authorities demanded their return, she said, an Immigration and Naturalization Services agent interviewed the family and recommended seeking asylum.
More than two decades spent navigating immigration proceedings now inform Solis-Sison's choices at the polls. She has prepared a personal voter guide and diary to mark the occasion. Describing herself as fortunate, she said she feels responsible for helping protect people still caught in the process, including those being harmed or left behind.
Juan Escalante, 37, also approaches his first general election as a citizen with his family's experience in mind. His family moved from Venezuela to the United States when he was 11. Around his junior year of high school in south Florida, he learned he was undocumented. He said a lawyer's poor advice and mishandling of the family's immigration case had contributed to their situation.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, established during the Obama administration, changed Escalante's status. He became his family's first college graduate and, in 2025, its first American citizen. Now living in California, he researched every candidate and proposition on his lengthy mail-in ballot. Immigration remained central to those decisions: although his parents hold green cards, the family still worries about their future status.
In Wisconsin, 24-year-old Deisy España is voting with similar concerns. A citizen by birth, she grew up with two undocumented parents from Mexico. Only as she got older did she understand why her mother prayed during traffic stops: her parents feared being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Her mother recently received a green card, but reports of detentions and deaths involving ICE continue to make España think about her father.
Politically active before becoming eligible to vote in 2020, España said immigration has long shaped her priorities. President Trump's hardline approach has heightened her sense of what is at stake. She urges other young voters with immigrant relatives to consider their parents when casting ballots. "I'm voting for my parents," she said.
Leydi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old American citizen in Texas, sponsored her parents from El Salvador after turning 21. They now have authorization to remain in the country while awaiting residency approval, but she still fears they could face detention or deportation. Her family began discussing who would care for her siblings if that happened when Trump was first elected president.
Gonzalez said the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent in Texas has shaken her community. She sees potential for change in the election, particularly if congressional control shifts. In Texas's Senate contest, Democrat James Talarico has been polling ahead of Republican nominee and state Attorney General Ken Paxton. For Gonzalez, her ballot represents a hope for greater security for her family.
