First-Time Voters With Immigrant Roots Say Family Status Drives Their 2026 Ballots

Nicole Solis-Sison, 34, became a U.S. citizen earlier this year after her family fled the Philippine government and sought asylum when she was seven. Now voting for the first time in New York City, she said her immigrant experience informs her choice at the polls.

"I feel like I do have a weight to protect people who are going through this process, who are getting left behind and harmed," Solis-Sison said. She recalled an Immigration and Naturalization Services agent arriving at her family's Los Angeles home when they faced deportation, then advising them to file for asylum.

Solis-Sison's account reflects a pattern in this year's midterms: voters whose lives have touched the immigration system describe their ballots as a matter of family obligation rather than personal economic interest. The motivation diverges from the housing costs, student loans and family-planning concerns that typically move younger voters.

Juan Escalante, 37, learned he was undocumented around his junior year of high school in south Florida. He said his parents hired a lawyer whose mistakes closed off their case: "you're kind of out of the line entirely." The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program later changed his status, and he became the first in his family to finish college and, in 2025, the first to become a citizen.

Escalante, now a California resident, researched every proposition and candidate on his mail-in ballot. "I never once took that for granted as I was filling out my ballot," he said. His parents hold green cards, but he said the family still worries about their status, so immigration topped his list when choosing candidates.

In Wisconsin, 24-year-old Deisy España grew up with parents from Mexico who were undocumented. She recalled her mother praying during traffic stops. Her mother now holds a green card, but España said encounters with ICE still feel personal: "That could have been my dad."

España, who could not vote until 2020, said the presence of ICE agents near people who resemble her parents raises what is at stake for her this year. Her instruction to other young voters in similar households is direct: "Don't vote for yourself. Vote for your parents."

Leydi Gonzalez, 23, of Texas, sponsored her parents from El Salvador for legal status after she turned 21. "When I turned 21, the first thing that I was excited for was to finally petition my parents. It wasn't drinking," she said. Her parents have authorization to remain in the U.S. while awaiting a residency decision.

Gonzalez said her family began discussing guardianship for her siblings if her parents were detained or deported during Trump's first term. In Texas, she is watching a U.S. Senate race in which Democrat James Talarico has polled ahead of Republican nominee Ken Paxton, the state attorney general. "It definitely feels like I'm voting for my family," Gonzalez said.

The killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent in Texas has weighed on her community, she said. Her parents remain in the backlog for residency approval.