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Thursday, December 12, 2024 - 04:27 PM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to wreck America's election integrity."

Yes, my friends, it's time to change the (in)famous phrase at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Open borders are not just a recipe for replacing native-born workers with cheap foreign labor and trading assimilation for multicultural militancy. They're about undermining the historic nation through devalued citizenship and sabotage of the precious right to vote.

Over the weekend, New York City's Democrat mayor Eric Adams threw his support to a City Council-approved measure to allow an estimated 800,000 local noncitizens to participate in local elections. The newly minted voters would include green-card holders, temporary visa holders, including H-1B workers mostly from China and India, F-1/Optional Practical Training foreign university students with employment authorization, and potentially unknown masses of illegal alien so-called Dreamers.

These new voters will be granted enormous influence over vital local matters pertaining to everything from education to taxes to crime and only need to show they've been in the city for a measly 30 days. It doesn't matter that these noncitizens will largely have no attachment at all to America as their permanent home but instead see it as a temporary rest stop, a cash cow, or, at worst, hostile territory.

Adams proclaimed in a statement that while he had "some concerns" about the bill, he now believes "allowing the legislation to be enacted is by far the best choice, and look forward to bringing millions more into the democratic process."

"Democratic process," of course, is a euphemism for "Democrat Party."

The demographic overwhelming of our elections through both illegal alien amnesty and unfettered legal immigration is straight out of the left-wing playbook. What's happening in the Big Apple is not new, nor is it a "conspiracy theory." As I've long reported since my early days in newspaper journalism in Southern California, there's been a steady erosion of voter integrity at the hands of open-borders politicians and operatives for decades.

Since 1991, six municipalities in Montgomery County, Maryland, have allowed noncitizens (with no distinction between legal and illegal aliens) to cast ballots in local elections: Garrett Park, Takoma Park, Somerset, Chevy Chase, Martin's Additions and Barnesville. An additional five Maryland municipalities, two Vermont towns, two U.S. territories and San Francisco (school board elections only, for now) have also opened their voting booths to noncitizens.

And don't forget: In 1993, the federal "Motor Voter" law "expanded the franchise" for political expediency -- exacerbating the perilous trend of lowering the safeguards for voting that continues to undermine the value of U.S. citizenship today. The nationwide granting of driver's licenses to illegal aliens paved the way for untold election theft.

Former Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Alan C. Nelson's warning nearly 30 years ago when Takoma Park passed its noncitizen voting referendum remains more trenchant than ever:

"In many countries of the world, an alien is always an alien. In our country, we are proud that our laws and social policies encourage aliens of all races and cultures to become citizens. In recent years, however, an increasing number of aliens have not pursued citizenship. ... This trend is disturbing, because it could seriously affect the assimilation process immigrants have pursued in this nation for 200 years. ... This important value of becoming a citizen is lost if an alien can vote without becoming a citizen. Any legal resident alien can become a U.S. citizen in five years. That is not an unreasonable time to wait to be able to participate in our democracy. ... The five-year wait emphasizes the value of citizenship as a requirement to vote and to becoming a full member of the community. ... If local voting by noncitizens is allowed, state and federal voting could be next. Either there is a policy basis for noncitizens to vote, or there is not. If we open the door, itcannot be closed halfway."

It should be as glaring as Lady Liberty's torchlight that election reform begins with a complete, total and immediate immigration moratorium.