‘Eight Million New Voters’: Barack Obama And The Democrat Plan To Flood The Nation With Immigrants

The following is an excerpt from the new book “The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon” by Peter Schweizer (January 20, 2026/HarperCollins)

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It was a hot July 2009 in Washington, DC, and a silver-haired labor boss stood before the crowd and personified the fusing of Mexico’s territorial ambitions with those of an American president looking to create new voters.

Eliseo Medina was the secretary-treasurer of one of the most powerful unions in America, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. He also had the ear of the newly elected president, Barack Obama, who had met with him when he was a senator. “Before immigration debates took place in Washington,” Obama had said, “I spoke with Eliseo Medina and SEIU members.”

Medina was a labor boss, but he was also an immigrant. Apparently, he wanted to change America profoundly.

“When they [recently naturalized migrants] voted in November,” Medina observed, “they voted overwhelmingly for progressive candidates. Barack Obama got two out of every three voters who showed up.”

Roger Wollenberg/Getty Images

So, I think there’s [sic] two things that matter for the progressive community: Number one: If we are to expand this electorate to win, the progressive community needs to solidly be on the side of immigrants. That will expand and solidify the progressive coalition for the future. Number two: [If] we reform the immigration laws, it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if we have, even the same ratio, two out of three? If we have eight million new voters . . . [we] will create a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.

What Eliseo Medina didn’t say on that day was that he was not only an immigrant, labor leader, and Obama confidant. He was also an advisor to the Mexican government’s foreign ministry—in particular, the Institute for Mexicans Abroad, which, as we saw earlier, was created by officials because “Mexico needs Mexican Americans to lobby the US government to make decisions favorable to Mexico.”

Elected in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis, President Barack Obama brought a message of “hope and change” through the “fundamental transformation of America.” The transformation he envisioned was both cultural and political, and Obama likely saw migrants as the vectors for such transformation. Obama’s second job out of college was as a community organizer for the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation, “an organization that had long supported immigrant rights.” Immigrants had long been a cornerstone of the progressive coalition in Chicago, where Obama grew up politically.

Cover credit: Harper

During the 2008 Democratic Party campaign, Obama lost the hotly contested Pennsylvania primary to Hillary Clinton. He was later caught on tape explaining to donors why, blaming rural voters who opposed mass migration:

“And it’s not surprising that they get bitter; they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

When he wasn’t expressing concerns about the immigrant sentiments of ordinary Americans, Obama declared that his immigrant roots gave him unique and special insights. He told voters in Iowa that “his childhood years in Indonesia and his Kenyan roots” led him to oppose the Iraq war because those experiences had taught him “how powerful tribal and ethnic sentiments are.” For the 2008 election, Obama and his team brazenly “adopted a prominent phrase from within the immigrant rights movement” and made it their campaign slogan: “Sí se puede! Yes we can.”

What Obama understood was that, unlike those rural voters, the most supportive group in the United States for his expansive government agenda to transform America were immigrants. And many of them, like Obama, wanted America to change from the foundation up.

Not only did newly naturalized migrants vote for Democrats in large numbers, but they were also significantly to the left of the typical Democrat. In 2010, 69 percent of immigrants supported Obama’s plans for a massive government takeover of health care, according to polling. Surveys regularly demonstrated that migrants preferred larger and more intrusive government practices, often reflecting socialist experiences in their home countries. During Obama’s first term, 75 percent of Hispanic immigrants told pollsters they preferred a “bigger government providing more services.” Only 41 percent of the general American population agreed.

At the same time, migrants were shown to be less supportive of preserving America’s core values. A 2013 Harris Interactive survey found that “only 50 percent of naturalized citizens” believed “schools should teach children to be proud Americans,” compared with 81 percent of those who were native-born. When asked if “the US Constitution is a higher authority than international law,” only 37 percent of naturalized citizens agreed, compared to 67 percent of American-born natives. And while surveys found that 85 percent of Americans viewed themselves as US citizens and not “citizens of the world,” only 54 percent of naturalized citizens embraced that view.

The partisan advantage for Democrats that Obama and Medina noted was not only real; it was growing. Four years after his election, in 2012, a YouGov survey found that recent immigrants favored Democrats over Republicans by almost four to one.

Therefore, the hard work of ignoring citizenship standards to create these voters needed to continue.

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This excerpt from “The Invisible Coup” is published by permission from Harper, a division of HarperCollins Publishers. “The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon” is written by Peter Schweizer and is available on January 20, 2026.

Peter Schweizer is a #1 bestselling investigative journalist and author. He is the president of the Government Accountability Institute. His previous works have uncovered widespread corruption and have led to official investigations and significant policy reforms. Known for his deep-dive forensic research, Schweizer has become one of the most respected and impactful investigative reporters of his generation.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.