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Asian groups, the ACLU and other organizations have sued the Trump administration, claiming it uses flawed information to strictly scrutinize the voter qualifications of naturalized citizens, thereby discriminating and threatening the Asian community’s voting rights.
As the countdown to the US midterm elections begins, many peopleAsian civil rights organizations unitedAmerican citizen The ACLU and public interest organization Common Cause filed a lawsuit on the 28th, requesting a halt to the Trump administration’s voter eligibility review actions against naturalized citizens, accusing the federal government of using unreliable information to screen naturalized voters and subjecting them to additional scrutiny that US-born citizens do not face. This is suspected to be discrimination and a threat to legal status.vote Correct.
The lawsuit comes after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) requested California election officials to suspend mailing ballots to thousands of voters who were not listed; If these people have already voted, the counting of votes should be postponed until their voting eligibility is confirmed. The relevant lists have been sent to elections officials in all 58 California counties.
The complaint says the federal government is also expected to expand review of naturalized citizen voter eligibility in Washington, Wisconsin, Missouri, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York and Connecticut, and to prioritize voter records in New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Arizona, Florida and Georgia.
The plaintiffs criticized the methodology used by the federal government to identify doubtful voters as “untested, untested, and questionable” and said there were major questions about the reliability of the data it relied upon.
The lawsuit states that naturalized citizens who are subject to investigation must undergo voting eligibility checks that U.S.-born citizens do not face, and may even be denied their legal right to vote due to inaccurate information and flawed processes.
“Citizenship through naturalization is not second-class citizenship,” said Dahani Tsuboi, CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California.
He criticized the government for using their immigration records to target naturalized citizens, many of whom are Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, and treating their voting rights as questionable, while other voters do not undergo the same scrutiny.
This controversy is of particular importance to the Asian community. The latest data from the Pew Research Center shows that of the approximately 25 million naturalized citizens eligible to vote in the United States, Asians account for nearly a third; And nearly two-thirds of Asian voters eligible to vote are naturalized citizens.
Groups participating in the lawsuit also include OCA (Asian Pacific American Advocates), OCA San Mateo and Sacramento chapters, and the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC).
Thuy Nguyen, executive director of OCA, said federal agencies that should be helping people participate in elections are now using flawed information to survey voters, which could undermine the trust immigrant communities have built over the years and scare people away from exercising their right to vote.
USCIS declined to comment on the allegations and referred inquiries to the Department of Homeland Security. However, when asked by federal agencies to suspend the mailing or counting of ballots, they noted that the relevant measures are aimed at protecting the votes of US citizens and preventing people without citizenship from illegally participating in federal elections.
The federal government said that as long as California confirms that the voters in question have U.S. citizenship, their votes should be counted, noting that legal voters would not be affected.
Summary FAQ
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The plaintiffs asked the court to prevent the federal government from conducting voter eligibility checks on naturalized citizens, specifically a measure that requires California to suspend the mailing or counting of certain ballots to prevent legal voters from being denied the right to vote before they are confirmed.
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The lawsuit argues that the government uses untested, unverified, and insufficiently reliable data to target naturalized citizens without conducting a similar review of U.S.-born citizens, tantamount to placing an additional burden on voters with immigrant backgrounds.
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Because approximately 1/3 of naturalized citizens eligible to vote in the United States are Asian, and approximately 2/3 of Asian voters eligible to vote are naturalized citizens; If the review is expanded, the Asian community may have to bear the brunt.
