Aliens Voting in US

Lately, I have seen where part of the debate on immigration reform, and the idea of providing Amnesty to illegal immigrants, has focused on the children of these illegal immigrants and aliens.  I got to wondering why there was so any focus on the children.  So, I started doing some research into the US Code, Title 8.  And what I found was quite interesting.

In the US Code, there is a statute that is specifically related to illegal entry into the United States.  This is 8 U.S.C. § 1325 that provides for fines (up to a whopping $500 for someone violating a second time or more) and jail time of 6 months for first offense and up to 2 years for subsequent offenses.  This refers to Title 18, which is the Title that contains Federal Crimes, but illegal entry is not specifically identified there.  So, basically, this is handled on a civil basis and not a Criminal basis.  In addition, a $500 fine, and the fact most of these people don't get put in jail for the offense, is not a deterrent to someone committed to getting into the United States.

While looking through this section of the code, I decided to look at voting rights of aliens, and how they could possibly vote legally in the United States.  This led me to 18 U.S.C. § 611 that states it is illegal for aliens to vote in Federal Elections for President, Vice President, Presidential Electors, Senators, Representatives, or Resident Commissioner, including voting in the District of Columbia for any of the above and the Delegate of District of Columbia.

This seems really quite straight forward, until you read subsection (c) which provides for an exemption to the restriction noted above and in subsection (a) of the chapter of Title 18.  The exemptions provide s that an alien can vote in Federal Elections if -

1. Both parents are or WERE citizens of the United States by birth or naturalization,
2. The alien permanently resided in the United States since before age 16, and,
3. The alien reasonably believed they were a citizen at the time of the election.

Now, I don't know how often this happens, nor if this is something that could have an impact, but do you realize the impact this could have after Amnesty is granted?  All these people that will then be considered naturalized citizens of the United States could then go home, repatriate to their home country, have children and send them to the United States to live, without them becoming citizens, and they can vote in our elections simply by stating they believed they were United States Citizens.

This is why laws need to be reviewed and double checked before they go into effect.  This portion of the law, subsection (f), is reiterated in 18 U.S.C. § 1015 exempting these individuals from any form of civil or criminal prosecution.

Infiltrating the populace with voters that hold no allegiance to the United States is a real possibility  on these laws, and these laws need to be changed.  The best way to do this is to make it Constitutionally binding on the government that only United States Citizens can vote in any election, PERIOD!  Therefore, I have posted a Voting by Citizens Amendment proposal.  If you feel this is the right thing to do, please copy and send to your State Legislatures and contact them to close these loopholes once and for all.

Amendment Guy

Twitter @amendment_guy