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Voting Rights Project
Voting Rights Project

The UCLA Voting Rights Project is a project of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs aimed at creating an accessible and equitable system of voting for all Americans through impact litigation, research, and clinical education to expand access to the ballot box.

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News Articles & Media Coverage → Immigrant Rights

Kelly Lytle Hernandez in KNPR: “Nevada Judge Strikes Down Law Detaining Immigrants Over Its Racist Roots”

Historians like Kelly Lytle Hernandez have found that racism played a significant role in the law’s creation. “(The law was created) in 1929 by a eugenicist and white supremacist with the clear intention of targeting Mexican immigrants in particular, Latinx immigrants in general,” said Hernandez, a UCLA history professor and author who gave testimony in…

Paul Barragan-Monge in Los Angeles Times: “Letters to the Editor: Gavin Newsom needs to give Latinos reasons to save him in the recall election”

Candidates who want the Latino vote need to invest in outreach that makes them feel included in a vision of a prosperous future. In a state where Latinos represent the plurality, victory is no longer possible if a key demographic isn’t incentivized to vote.

Eric Avila in The Washington Post: “Interstate highways paved with racial injustice”

“Blight was a code word used to identify Black, working-class communities” said Eric Avila, a UCLA historian and author of “The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City.” Urged on by officials like Robert Moses, New York’s “master builder,” cities were sold on the idea of highway construction as a way…

Kelly Lytle Hernández in The Nevada Independent: “Nevada Judge Says Immigration Law Making Reentry A Felony Is Unconstitutional, Has Racist Origins”

She cited the arguments of Kelly Lytle Hernández, a history professor at UCLA, who traced the legislative history of the law to the 1920s when the government established quotas based on national origin. Hearings on bills during that time included arguments from proponents of eugenics and compared those crafting deportation laws to “successful breeders of…

Sonja Diaz in The New York Times: “Can Gov. Newsom Keep His Job? A Recall Effort in California Shows a Dead Heat.”

But Sonja Diaz, the director of the Latino Policy and Politics Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Democrats seemed to be playing catch-up as the Delta variant preoccupied voters.

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