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Immigrant Votes Wanted: 2006 elections - Republicans & Democrats parties are all working to win Immigrants votes.

More than 12 million immigrant citizens are of voting age, and it's largely an untapped pool of voters. Indeed, if they are courted properly, immigrants could turn the tide of the 2006 elections. Republicans, Democrats and smaller parties are all working to win the faith of immigrants.

and swing the election in their favor. Immigration reform is also being held off, so that lawmakers can continue to make promises without actually putting anything into effect. It will all boil down to who the immigrants trust and believe.

Ethnic political leaders are using in-face campaigns as well as the Internet, Web logs and satellite television to reach the immigrant market. The number of foreign-born in the United States went from 19.8 million in 1990 to 31.1 million in the year 2000. As hundreds of thousands gain citizenship, they become an integral part of this country's make up. In 2002, only 54 percent of naturalized citizens registered to vote and only 36 percent of them actually voted. That leaves 7.6 million eligible voters still to be mobilized.

In the last presidential election, Oscar Garcia of Forth Worth, Texas pitched President Bush to Latino immigrants, stressing pro-family, anti-abortion and pro-work ethics.

Republican Tom Ha worked to reach potential Vietnamese-American voters using their native language to talk about "freedom and democracy for Vietnam.

Haitian-born Democrat Judy Lubin reached out to fellow Haitian-Americans through a Web log.

The Top 10 countries of origin for naturalized U.S. citizens 18 or older in recent years:

Mexico: 1,930,825

Philippines: 812,884

Vietnam: 570,370

Cuba: 524,995

Germany: 448,509

China: 442,624

India: 372,212

Canada: 367,777

Italy: 353,906

Korea: 321,411

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