This past weekend, X owner Elon Musk promoted a false right-wing talking point about immigration, claiming that Democrats were fast-tracking citizenship applications to rig the election in the party’s favor.
“If 1 in 20 people became illegal citizens every year, something the Democrats are doing as fast as humanly possible, that would be about 2 million new legal voters in 4 years.” Musk claimed. “Voting margins in swing states are often less than 20,000 votes. That means there will be no more swing states if the ‘Democratic’ party succeeds!!”
It’s a baseless charge, and one that furthers the far-right racist “Great Replacement Theory,” which suggests that Democrats are using immigration policy to To replace white Americans — In this case, white voters — with the minority. It’s an argument that resonates widely with Republicans. Especially in XWhere lies about immigration have been given a bigger platform in recent weeks.
These lies are being spread by far more than just right-wing social media users. A myth about the prevalence of noncitizen voting briefly led to a government shutdown threat. Former President Donald Trump played a key role in spreading these ideas, with presidential debates noted Vice President Kamala Harris at the beginning of this year That “a lot of illegal immigrants are coming in, they’re trying to cast their votes.”
These lies – given their focus on polling – could have serious consequences as the 2024 elections approach, sowing doubts about the legitimacy of the election results.
With Trump Already priming his supporters The GOP’s fixation on voting for noncitizens and “illegal” immigrants is only helping him lay that foundation even further, to deny another round of election losses in potential damage.
Republicans persist in lying about immigrant voting
Kasturi claimed:
But his claim does not match the reality. Here’s what we know:
Claim: Democrats are making illegal immigrants citizens to tilt the election in their favor.
Reality: Unauthorized immigrants are broadly ineligible for naturalization. To qualify for naturalization, One must generally be a lawful permanent resident for five yearsMarried to a US citizen and lawful permanent resident or member of the military for three years.
Additionally, the United States is approving citizenship applications at its fastest pace of the year, but not because regulators are trying to skew the election in favor of Democrats. The government is doing this because there was already a backlog that worsened during the pandemic, The Los Angeles Times reports. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is effectively catching up.
Naturalized in the United States 878,500 in 2023 And now processes applications in roughly 4.9 months – a speed comparable to how fast the government used to be Approving the application in 2013. According to the New York TimesProcessing times for naturalization applications have increased during the Trump administration as the White House seeks to reduce legal and unauthorized immigration.
These new citizens are also not guaranteed Democratic voters. Polling has indicated that the general public is leaning Democrat, but both parties will likely pick up some new voters as people go through the process. According to a National Partnership for New Americans survey, 54 percent of naturalized citizens said they would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November, while 38 percent said they would support former President Donald Trump.
It’s worth reiterating that naturalized citizens are not unauthorized immigrants, and most of them — about 83 percent — have been lawful permanent residents for five years, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. There are unauthorized immigrants Several paths to citizenshipAnd many are not eligible for naturalization
Claim: According to Musk, “the Biden/Harris administration is flying ‘asylum seekers,’ who are seeking expedited citizenship, directly to swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona.”
Reality: This seems to be referring to Republican talking points A “parole” program by the Biden administration Allowed for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans amid instability in their home countries. Under the program, people can enter the U.S. temporarily for two years, pay for their own travel, and fly to designated destinations. There is no proof People who are specifically flowing into the swing state.
Additionally, parolees do not have a path to citizenship and will consequently be unable to vote in future elections.
As legal immigrants, asylum seekers have a path to citizenship; According to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), 3.3 percent of those naturalized in 2023 came to the United States as asylum seekers — about 29,000 people. Although that might be enough to swing a state off Georgia was in 2020That’s not enough to sway the outcome in all the states Musk lists, even if Democrats fly people there. Which, again, they don’t.
Also, most naturalized citizens settled in states that are not swing states, with California, Texas, Florida, New York, and New Jersey topping the list. Per USCIS.
There’s another core conservative lie when it comes to immigration and voting, and it’s one that Musk’s tweet seems to touch on.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) highlighted the claim in a tweet in response to a user; Musk then responded to the post. According to Lee“As thousands of noncitizen voter files are discovered in state after state, Democrats are trying to stop those states from removing noncitizens from their voter files.” The senator claimed that’s why Republicans failed the SAVE Act, which would have required proof of citizenship to vote. should have passed
Claim: Allowing noncitizens to vote and help Democrats win federal elections.
Reality: It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and noncitizens are rarely voted illegally. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, A left-leaning nonprofit organization that focuses on voting rights, election officials responsible for counting nearly 23.5 million votes in 2016 identified 30 cases of possible noncitizen voting for investigation.
Noncitizens are able to vote in some local elections for positions such as city councils and school boards in some jurisdictions in Vermont and California, but they are not able to vote in any federal elections.
Republicans are stoking immigration fears
Republicans are taking this approach because of how important it is This election cycle proves it again And because more voters said they would do better Border security than Democrats.
As Vox’s Nicole Naria reports, a majority of Americans — 55 percent, the highest proportion in years — want to see immigration levels in the United States reduced. Capitalizing on these sentiments, Republicans have positioned themselves as the party with solutions to the problem, framing Democrats’ so-called laxity at the border as the cause of the immigration problem.
In this matter has attracted new attention Record-high border crossings by the end of 2023From which there has been a decline, and an influx of immigrants to several large cities.
By linking existing concerns about immigration to voting, Republicans are once again using misinformation to undermine trust in the electoral system. Meanwhile, there are noteworthy Doubts about election securityPartly because of Trump and other prominent leaders Denial of vigorous selection. A August ABC/Ipsos poll About 25 percent of Trump supporters are not ready to accept the election results, regardless of the outcome. Claims that there is something wrong with who is voting can exacerbate these concerns, especially if they play on existing anti-immigrant bias.
As Republicans rally around this lie about immigrant turnout, it’s not far-fetched to believe Trump, if he loses, could try to claim that noncitizens influenced the election for Harris, especially since he Blamed non-citizens for his losses in 2020 and his loss of the popular vote in 2016. Should he try to do so again, he’s poised to replicate the chaos and confusion created by Republicans caving in to false concerns about election fraud during the last election.
