House passes bill to keep non-citizens out of DC elections

A coalition of Republicans and Democrats voted in favor of legislation to keep non-citizens out of local elections in Washington, D.C.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed H.R. 884, a bill that would repeal the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022 and prohibit non-citizens from voting in local elections in the District of Columbia. Lawmakers voted 266 to 148 in support of the legislation, with 56 Democrats crossing the aisle to back the Republican-led bill.

“Today, the House took action to defend that power and restore the sanctity of the voting process by passing my legislation to block noncitizens from voting in DC elections,” Texas GOP Rep. August Pfluger, the sponsor of the bill, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Let me be clear: anyone who voted against my bill voted for the transfer of political power away from legal voters,” Pfluger continued.

H.R. 884 would specifically roll back the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022, according to the text of the legislation. The D.C. Council passed the local law, nearly unanimously, in October 2022, permitting green-card holders and even illegal migrants the right to cast their ballots in local races beginning in 2024.

Republicans have long ripped the local ordinance, arguing it dilutes the voting power of American citizens when allowing non-citizens to participate in the election process. Roughly 90,000 migrants live in the District of Columbia, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

In addition to allowing non-citizens the right to vote, Washington, D.C., is also considered a sanctuary jurisdiction by immigration experts. The Center for Immigration Studies, a hawkish immigration group based in the city, identifies an April 2021 policy that severely restricts local law enforcement’s ability to honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers as its reason for the sanctuary city label.

“The radical DC Council decided to allow noncitizens — including illegal aliens and foreign agents — to vote in local elections,” Pfluger said to the DCNF.

“Even worse, they then proceeded to encourage noncitizens to vote for mayor, attorney general, and more,” the Texas lawmaker continued. “It’s no secret that local elections determine critical matters, and allowing noncitizens to vote in them opens a Pandora’s box to D.C.’s already radical local policies, diluting the voting power of citizen voters.”

Pfluger’s bill passed the House of Representatives in May 2024, but it died in the Democrat-controlled Senate. However, with Republicans now in control of both chambers of Congress and President Donald Trump back in the White House, the efforts to unravel D.C.’s voting law are much more likely to reach the finish line.

The Tuesday vote came exactly one month after House lawmakers passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, legislation requiring states to obtain proof of citizenship prior to registering an individual for any federal election and also requiring state officials to remove all non-citizens from existing voter rolls. Only four Democrats in the House voted in favor of the bill.

The Trump administration, for its part, has also taken strong actions to keep non-citizens out of U.S. elections.

In March, the president signed Executive Order 14248, Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections, which aims to protect voting systems from fraud, systemic error, and foreign influence. Roughly two months later, the administration unveiled a partnership with the Social Security Administration to better verify immigration status and citizenship, a move the administration says will help prevent non-citizens from voting in U.S. elections.

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