By Staff Reporter |
Democratic Senate candidate and Congressman Ruben Gallego has flipped his stance on voting rights for illegal migrants.
The congressman recently introduced legislation to clarify the illegality of non-citizen voting in federal elections. Yet last year, Gallego voted against a bill that similarly condemned non-citizen voting.
The legislation Gallego rejected, House Joint Resolution 24, was an opposition to the D.C. City Council’s approval of the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022. Even without Gallego’s vote, the resolution ultimately passed the House 260-162.
That D.C. act allowed noncitizens, mainly illegal immigrants, to vote in elections. It became law last February for a time, but the House quickly voted to cancel it.
Gallego’s newest bill, the Voting Clarity Act, serves as an advisory to illegal immigrants. The brief legislation is a mandate for Customs and Border Protection to inform illegal immigrants of federal law: that only citizens may vote in federal elections.
“The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide information to each alien applying for asylum under this section on the restrictions on voting and the penalties for voting unlawfully under Federal law, including under section 611 of title 18, United States Code, at the time of such application. Information under this paragraph shall be provided in a form and language that the alien can understand.”
Violation of voting law would incur a fine and/or up to one year in prison.
In a press release, Gallego said that the privilege of U.S. citizenship, voting, shouldn’t be extended to noncitizens.
“That is why it is critical that those seeking to enter the U.S. are told clearly and upfront that they cannot vote in our elections if they are not citizens,” said Gallego. “I’m proud to introduce this commonsense bill to combat misinformation about who can, and cannot vote in our federal elections.”
Gallego’s legislation portrays the Senate candidate as tough but fair on the hot topic of the border. Last week, Gallego issued an ad featuring the sheriff who denied the border crisis and rejected Arizona National Guard assistance for his county in doing so, Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway.
Hathaway has downplayed the severity of the state of the border.
“We don’t have a migrant crisis on the border. We do not need to militarize our counties and have troops come to the border,” said Hathaway. “We have certain, very vocal sheriffs in this state who are trying to fan the flames on a supposed crisis.”
Conversely, Gallego has admitted that the state of the border constitutes a crisis.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a statement claiming the Voting Clarity Act was just a way to “pander” to Arizonans.
“Ruben Gallego has been rubber-stamping the far left’s most radical, open border policies for his entire career in Washington,” said the NRSC. “His election year pandering is a slap in the face to Arizonans who are facing the brunt of the border crisis Gallego helped create.”
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