I find strong evidence to support theories of straight-line assimilation, which say that later generation immigrants will be more likely to be politically engaged than first-generation immigrants. People who are naturalized immigrants are significantly less likely to turn out than individuals who have no immigrant status in their family history. Individuals whose parents are foreign-born are still less likely to vote compared to individuals whose family members are all U.S. born citizens. At the same time, individuals with foreign-born parents are more likely to vote than individuals who are naturalized immigrants. Individuals who have foreign-born grandparents are actually more likely to vote than the group of all-U.S. born citizens. The maximum turnout rate of third-generation immigrants leads to a non-linear pattern of voter turnout from first-generation immigrants to fourth generation or plus immigrants. However, it is still clear that individuals from later immigrant generations are more likely to vote. More specifically, later generation Latinx’s are more likely to vote. Naturalized Latinx immigrants are significantly less likely to turn out than multi-generation Latinx’s and there is a smaller negative effect for Latinx’s whose parents were born in another country. Latinx’s whose grandparents were born in another country is still less likely to vote than multigeneration Latinx’s, but the effect is even smaller than the second-generation Latinx’s.

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In general, first-generation naturalized immigrants have the lowest voter turnout compared to individuals who have other immigrant statuses. Voter turnout increases as respondents have foreign-born parents. Individuals who have foreign-born grandparents have even higher turnout rates compared to individuals who only have foreign-born parents. Individuals who have no immigrant background have the highest voter turnout compared to all the immigrant statuses. The empirical results are generally supportive of our arguments but still have racial differences. The pattern works for African Americans and Latinx’s, and it works to some extent for whites, but it does not work at all for Asian Americans and other race respondents. This study needs to be updated with election data from 2020.