AFL urges election officials in all states to halt voter registration of non-citizens
By bellecarter // 2024-06-30
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An American conservative public interest organization is urging elections authorities from all 50 states to stop sending voter registration forms to non-U.S. citizens a few months before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. America First Legal (AFL) wrote to chief elections officers, secretaries of state, attorneys general, lieutenant governors and governors, calling on them to verify immigration statuses on voter rolls using Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data and boot any non-Americans they find. So far, Arizona is the only state that already passed a law preventing this, but it applies only to state forms, not federal ones. "If DHS fails to respond to an inquiry, you can sue in federal court to obtain the necessary information that Congress has required DHS to provide," AFL Executive Director Gene Hamilton said in the letter. "Given widespread public concern over the presence of foreign nationals on voter rolls in jurisdictions across the United States and unprecedented levels of illegal immigration across our southern border since January 20, 2021, the time to act is now," he added. It was earlier reported by the National Pulse that illegal aliens and other "non-citizens" can receive voter registration forms without needing to show proof of citizenship in at least 49 states. They can use these forms to access welfare benefits and obtain driver’s licenses and mail-in ballots. Tens of thousands of non-citizens have been discovered on voter rolls, recent audits and investigations have shown. Hundreds later ended up voting without being discovered beforehand. Under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, states must provide applicants for welfare benefits with voter registration forms that do not require proof of U.S. citizenship. NVRA also mandates that states facilitate voter registration at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and welfare offices. At least eight million more migrants are expected to be living in the U.S. by October of this year, many of whom are eligible for welfare benefits that would put them within reach of voter registration opportunities. To combat this, the House Administration Committee has approved the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also emphasized the need for increased enforcement measures. Meanwhile, AFL President Stephen Miller in a statement accused the Biden administration of a "direct effort to sabotage the 2024 election through potential mass illegal alien voting." More than half of non-citizens, or 59 percent, take advantage of at least one major federal welfare benefit, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), according to Census Bureau data analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies. Nineteen states and Washington, DC, also allow non-citizens to obtain driver's licenses, a move that President Joe Biden backed during his 2020 campaign.

DEBATE: Trump highlights open border crisis, an issue proven to be Biden's most vulnerable

During the much-awaited CNN debate, former President Donald Trump complained about how the current administration is treating illegal aliens better than U.S. citizens. He cited how migrants who arrive in the country illegally are housed in "luxury hotels" while veterans are on the street. He also tackled migrant crime and accused some illegals who are coming into the U.S. from "mental institutions" and "insane asylums" during the Biden regime which listed historic levels of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. He also claimed that the illegal aliens are "killing our citizens at a level that we've never seen." Trump also said that he recently spoke to the mother of a girl, who was recently killed, adding "We had the safest border in the history of our country. All he had to do was leave it." He accused Biden of undoing much of his restrictive border policies "just because I approved it, which is crazy," saying Biden has "killed so many people at our border." Since the start of campaigning, Trump has vowed to implement strict immigration policies as soon as he gets back in the White House. He has promised to execute mass deportations of people who are in the U.S. without legal status. He would also seek to end birthright citizenship, screen prospective immigrants for "Marxist" ideologies and use the military to target drug smugglers. (Related: Migrants rushing to cross the U.S. southern border before Biden loses in November.) Meanwhile, Biden stuck to his talking points on immigration, highlighting a 40 percent drop in arrests for illegal immigration since issuing an executive order suspending asylum during the said debate. Just a few months before the election, Biden issued an executive order that allows border officials to quickly turn back migrants who illegally cross the border, without a chance at asylum, when border crossings meet a certain threshold. He also made a path to citizenship "easier for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for years and are married to U.S. citizens." According to an AP-NORC poll from June, just three in 10 Americans approve of Biden's handling of immigration. About six in 10 Democrats approve of Biden's approach to the issue, but only about two in 10 independents and fewer than one in 10 Republicans agree. Follow Migrants.news to read stories related to Biden's illegal immigration policies in the United States.

Sources for this article include:

NYPost.com TheNationalPulse.com PBS.org Axios.com
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