Conservative Legal Group Sues DC To Stop Illegal Immigrant Voting Law
Jennie Taer on March 14, 2023
The conservative Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) sued Washington, D.C., Tuesday over its new law allowing illegal immigrants to vote.
The lawsuit coincides with the law’s first day in effect and argues that it “dilutes” a U.S. citizen’s vote. Washington’s city council passed in October the D.C. Act 24-640, District of Columbia Council’s Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, to permit illegal immigrants and legal non-citizens to vote in local elections.
The lawsuit argues that the voting law is illegal based on the Supreme Court upholding that the right to govern is “reserved” to citizens.
“This law—and others like it that are popping up around the country—is a direct attack on American self-government,” Christopher Hajec, IRLI’s director of litigation, said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The proponents of this law claim it gives citizens of foreign nations a ‘voice’ in the affairs of the city they reside in. But they already have a voice, protected by the First Amendment.”
In its lawsuit, IRLI is representing Stacia Hall, the Republican candidate for Washington mayor in 2022, and seven other nonimmigrant and immigrant U.S. citizen DC voters, the group said.
”This law doesn’t just give foreign citizens a voice in our country’s affairs, it gives them voting power that politicians inevitably will have to respond to. That transfer of power flies in the face of the clear right of the American people to govern themselves,” Hajec said.
An estimated 50,000 noncitizens live in the nation’s capital, according to The Washington Post.
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