CV NEWS FEED // The Biden Administration has stated strong opposition to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require people to provide proof of citizenship before voting in upcoming elections.
As CatholicVote reported in June, Republican congressmen pushed for the SAVE Act to pass following a bombshell report from the New York Post revealing that welfare agencies gave thousands of non-citizens voter registration forms without requiring proof of citizenship. U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-TX, first introduced the SAVE Act in May.
On July 8, the Executive Office of the President expressed its opposition to the legislation in a statement that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson posted to his X account.
Johnson wrote in the X post: “It should alarm every American citizen that the sitting President of the United States, who has opened our border to over 9 million illegals, just announced that he would veto our bill to prevent noncitizens from voting.”
The Biden Administration this week argued that it is “already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal elections,” a “Federal crime punishable by prison and fines.”
“The alleged justification for this bill is based on easily disproven falsehoods,” the statement continued:
Additionally, making a false claim of citizenship or unlawfully voting in an election is punishable by removal from the United States and a permanent bar to admission. States already have effective safeguards in place to verify voters’ eligibility and maintain the accuracy of voter rolls.”
The Administration also claimed the Act would make it more difficult to register to vote: “This bill would do nothing to safeguard our elections, but it would make it much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls.
The Biden Administration also claimed that “it is extraordinarily rare for noncitizens to break the law by voting in Federal elections” and that there is sufficient evidence that current laws are effective.
“The President has been clear: he will continue fighting to protect Americans’ sacred right to vote in free, fair, and secure elections,” the statement continued, adding that Biden supports the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.
The statement concluded:
If House Republicans really want to do something about securing our border and fixing our broken immigration system, they should vote on the border deal that the President negotiated with a bipartisan group of Senators this would provide immigration officials the resources they need to do their jobs and be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border that we have seen in decades.
