Politics

EXCLUSIVE: Texas Republicans Press Biden-Harris Admin Over ‘Turning A Blind Eye’ To Non-Citizen Voters

Flickr/Gage Skidmore

A coalition of Texas Republicans led by Reps. Randy Weber and Chip Roy released a letter Wednesday hammering the Biden-Harris administration for failing to provide requested citizenship data regarding voter registration.

Roy and Weber, along with 12 GOP colleagues, asked U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Ur Jaddou to comply with Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson’s request for assistance verifying non-citizens are not being registered to vote, according to the letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The request came after Republican Gov. Greg Abbot of Texas purged 6,500 potential noncitizens from voter rolls in August, to which lawmakers claim Jaddou has a “moral imperative to assist the state” in clarifying registration data.

The original deadline for Nelson’s request was Oct. 2, but she has yet to receive a reply from the federal government, according to the letter.

“Public confidence in elections is a necessary cornerstone of any representative government,” Roy told the DCNF. “That confidence must be earned through diligence and transparency.”

“The Harris-Biden administration’s refusal to provide Texas with crucial information is a clear dereliction of duty,” Weber said.

The current administration has “consistently dismissed” concerns about non-citizens voting, claiming that the “current laws to prevent noncitizen voting are working,” according to the letter. At the same time, the administration is “preventing” states like Texas from properly enforcing those laws by withholding the citizenship data the state requested. (RELATED: Six Dems Vote In Favor Of Resolution Bashing Biden And ‘Border Czar’ Harris’ Failures)

The letter also points to a recent lawsuit from the Biden-Harris administration against Alabama’s removal of non-citizens from their voter rolls. The state of Florida was also forced to sue the Department of Homeland Security in 2012 in order to gain access to information that would help verify the citizenship of voters.

“They’re turning a blind eye to noncitizens influencing our elections, and they even killed the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) Act, which would have barred noncitizens from voting,” Weber told the DCNF. “Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting, so why don’t they hand over the voter rolls Texas needs to keep our elections clean? My Texas Republican colleagues and I demand they release the information without delay.”

Roy spearheaded the SAVE Act, a provision that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote, which narrowly passedthe House in July. The SAVE Act has not yet been voted on by the Senate.

Speaker Mike Johnson attached the SAVE Act to his original funding bill in September, which eventually failed in the House due to Republican defectors who cited fiscal concerns. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the continuing resolution with the attached SAVE Act “unserious and unacceptable,” and President Joe Biden confirmed that he would veto the bill if it made its way to the White House.

“Texas has a duty to prevent noncitizens from voting,” Roy told the DCNF. “The Biden-Harris administration is trying to prevent that for the same reason they fought the SAVE Act (H.R. 8281): they want noncitizens — especially illegal aliens — to vote.”

The letter was cosigned by Texas Republican Reps. Lance Gooden, August Pfluger, Ronny Jackson, Troy Nehls, John Carter, Beth Van Duyne, Pete Sessions, Brian Babin, Keith Self, Wesley Hunt, Pat Fallon and Morgan Luttrell.

The USCIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.