Sponsors
The bill increases deterrence and administrative clarity by treating unlawful noncitizen voting as a ground for inadmissibility and felony classification, but it imposes harsh, potentially disproportionate immigration and criminal consequences and legal uncertainty that can trap lawful residents for minor or inadvertent voting errors.
Taxpayers and the public: unlawful voting by noncitizens would bar those individuals from future admission, reducing incentives for illegal voting and potential burdens on election integrity.
State and federal immigration authorities: consolidates unlawful voting into inadmissibility and aggravated-felony frameworks, making enforcement determinations more administrable and theoretically clearer.
Noncitizen residents and recent migrants: could be rendered permanently inadmissible or classified as committing an aggravated felony for (even inadvertent) unlawful voting, triggering severe consequences such as bars to relief, removal exposure, and lifelong criminal stigma.
Immigrants and state/local election participants: the bill's broad phrasing (covering any federal, state, or local constitutional provision, statute, ordinance, or regulation) risks criminalizing minor or technical voting errors and producing uneven enforcement across jurisdictions.
Immigrants, immigration courts, and due-process advocates: removing the deportability paragraph while shifting to inadmissibility and felony language may create legal confusion, shift more cases toward entry denials rather than deportation proceedings, and complicate procedural protections for noncitizens already in the U.S.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Adds unlawful voting to the aggravated felony definition, makes unlawful voting a ground of inadmissibility, and removes a corresponding deportability paragraph.
Introduced January 23, 2025 by Dale Strong · Last progress January 23, 2025
Makes casting a vote in violation of federal, state, or local law an "aggravated felony" under the Immigration and Nationality Act, creates a new ground of inadmissibility for unlawful voting, and removes a related deportability paragraph from the deportation grounds. The change expands immigration consequences for noncitizens who vote unlawfully and alters how unlawful voting is treated across inadmissibility and deportability rules.