Foreigners and local interest vs. national interests

Foreign residents pay their taxes, and raise their children within their country of residency like naturalized citizens. They are also deeply involved in local communities, schools, and associations. Therefore, they should be allowed to vote in local elections; a vote that will most impact their lives. In other words, foreign residents and naturalized citizens live under the same policies set by legislative bodies, foreign residents have little ability to influence and select the representatives making laws. This exclusion is a fundamental violation of their self-determination— an affront to one of their most basic, inalienable rights. In the United States, such a reality turns millions of people (approximately 22 million) into political subordinates, further undermining the vitality of democratic life and making a mockery of American democracy. ^[1] That is to say that, "immigrants are a non-voting caste— disenfranchised pariahs in their adopted country."^[1] Politicians can easily enact discriminatory public policy and private practices— in employment, housing, education, health care, welfare, and criminal justice— and run xenophobic campaigns, secure in the knowledge that non-citizens will not be able to punish them by voting such offenders out of office. That being said, although foreign residents should be allowed to vote in local elections, they should be barred from voting in elections at the national level due to conflict of interests. These conflicts could arise on various fronts, some of which may include an economic rivalry between their country of citizenship and residency.^[2]