Undocumented immigrants granted amnesty under President Barack Obama’s executive orders can illegally register and vote in elections, state officials testified at a congressional hearing this week,
The Washington Times reported.
The officials said that the driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers aliens will be granted under new federal regulations delaying deportations for millions of illegals have created a major voting loophole.
The secretaries of state from Ohio and Kansas testified that illegal immigrants can easily fill out registration forms available from shopping malls and motor vehicle bureaus, even though it is illegal for them to vote and they face penalties for breaking the law.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said that motor vehicle bureau workers often ask customers if they want to register to vote, which noncitizens have blamed in the past for their illegal votes. "It’s a guarantee it will happen," said Kobach.
But Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting member of Congress, claimed that Obama’s unilateral action does not affect federal or state laws on voter registration.
"The president’s executive order gives immigrants the right to stay — immigrants who have been here for years, immigrants who have been working hard and whose labor we have needed," Norton said.
"The Republicans may want to go down in history as the party who tried once again 100 years later to nullify the right to vote. Well, I am here to say they shall not succeed."
And Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, scoffed at the suggestion that illegal immigrants would take the risk of being deported just for the chance to cast a ballot.
Thursday's hearing, before the House Oversight Committee, is part of an attempt by the GOP to hold up Obama’s executive action temporarily delaying deportations and giving work permits to millions of illegal immigrants who have children born legally in the U.S., the Times reported.
In another recent unilateral move, Obama granted temporary legal status to so-called Dreamers, those who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
Matthew Dunlap, Maine’s secretary of state, also doubted illegal immigrants would endanger their stay in the U.S. to become an insignificant part of American elections.
"My experience is they don’t come here to vote, and they don’t come here to drive. They come here for a better life," he said.
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