Dems mostly silent about whether they support granting voting rights to 800,000 noncitizens

New York House Democrats largely refused to comment Monday on whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote in New York City’s municipal elections.

New York’s Court of Appeals will hear a case Tuesday regarding a law that the New York City Council passed in 2022, which gave the city’s roughly 800,000 noncitizens holding green cards or work permits voting rights in municipal elections.

House Democrats representing parts of New York City or surrounding districts in New York are largely silent about whether they support noncitizen voting, which is opposed by a majority of Americans, Republican lawmakers, and President Donald Trump. The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Democratic New York Reps. Laura Gillen, Tom Suozzi, Pat Ryan, Josh Riley, and John Mannion to inquire about whether they support New York City’s noncitizen voting law.

Every House Democrat but Mannion did not respond to the DCNF’s multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for Mannion told the DCNF that the newly-elected House Democrat does not support noncitizen voting in municipal elections.

‘Outrageous Partisan Poison Pills’: Dems Threaten To Torpedo GOP’s Gov’t Funding Bill Targeting Noncitizen Votinghttps://t.co/sP6UIKJU7Y

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 5, 2024

All five Democratic lawmakers represent competitive New York districts and are vulnerable to Republican challengers. Gillen, Riley, and Mannion are first-term Democratic lawmakers who defeated GOP incumbents last November.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the House Republicans’ campaign arm, torched Gillen, Riley, Suozzi, and Ryan for refusing to state their position on noncitizen voting.

“After enabling Biden importing millions of illegal migrants, New York Democrats refuse to stand up to their party’s unhinged scheme to let non-citizens vote,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ben Petersen told the DCNF. “Their deafening silence proves they prioritize their out-of-touch open borders ideology over our sacred right to vote.”

New York City’s noncitizen voting law has been subjected to multiple rounds of litigation since Mayor Eric Adams declined to veto the bill and allowed the legislation to become law. Several New York courts have struck down the legislation, saying that the noncitizen voting law violates the New York state constitution.

New York House Republicans widely oppose noncitizen voting.

“Tomorrow we head back to court, for a third time, to stop NYC’s unconstitutional non-citizen voting law,” Republican New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis wrote on X on Feb 10. “After we won in both NY’s Supreme Court & Appellate Court, you’d think Democrats would stop wasting your tax dollars on another appeal!”

Though noncitizen voting in local elections is not widespread in the United States, the practice is allowed in some municipal elections across the country, including in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Burlington, Vt.

The House of Representatives passed legislation to repeal D.C.’s noncitizen voting law in May 2024, but the bill died in the formerly Democratic-controlled Senate.

Voters in eight states approved constitutional amendments prohibiting noncitizen voting in state and local elections last November.

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