While in NC, Vance claims Harris wants people in US illegally to vote. Here are the facts

During a rally in Asheboro on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump, his running mate JD Vance and other GOP surrogates spoke often about illegal immigration and the need to curb it.

Vance, an Ohio senator, repeated a claim often made by Republicans: that Vice President Kamala Harris wants to give people in the country illegally the right to vote.

There’s no record we could find of Harris attempting to allow people not in the country legally to vote.

Here’s a deeper look at Vance’s claim.

What exactly did he say?

Shortly after taking the stage, Vance said of Harris, “Her party wants more power and the way they’re going to do it, is she wants to give all those illegal aliens the right to vote.”

“But out here in the state of North Carolina, we believe the only people who get to vote in our elections are the people who have a right to be here, not illegal aliens,” he said.

What’s the current law on people not legally in the country voting?

It is illegal in federal elections for people not legally in the country to vote, under a law passed in 1996. Under this law, there are criminal penalties for violations.

This year, a group of Republicans introduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act that looks to further ensure noncitizen voting does not happen, including by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. That bill has stalled in the Senate after passing the House.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has been a champion of that bill and has also blamed Harris for allowing noncitizens to vote.

Referring to voter registration forms used in some states that ask applicants to check a box noting that they are U.S. citizens, Johnson said, “If a nefarious actor wants to intervene in our elections, all they have to do is check a box on a form and sign their name.”

“That’s it. That’s all that’s required. And there’s a very small chance that illegals would get caught,” Johnson said during a press conference in May, as reported by Poynter. Johnson did not say how many noncitizens had illegally voted, Poynter reported.

Noncitizen voting is very rare: A study by the Brennan Center that looked at 42 jurisdictions in the 2016 general election found that of 23.5 million votes, only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting may have occurred.

North Carolina law requires residents to be citizens to register to vote. It also requires voters to show a photo ID to vote. Lawmakers in North Carolina’s GOP-controlled legislature also passed a law this year calling for a constitutional amendment to further clarify that only citizens are allowed to vote.

In November, state voters will consider this proposed amendment to the state constitution, as previously reported by The News & Observer.

A few localities, with none in North Carolina, allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

California, Maryland and Vermont allow noncitizens to vote in some or all local elections, according to Ballotpedia. Harris was formerly San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general.

So has Harris attempted to allow people not legally in the country to vote?

There’s no record we could find of such an attempt. It’s not clear yet what Harris’ policies on immigration will be if she’s elected, as she’s not yet laid them out since becoming the Democratic nominee.

In 2019, she called for creating a pathway to citizenship for “DREAMers,” or immigrants without legal authorization who arrived in the United States as children.

Harris held a role briefly in 2021 as the point person in charge of examining the causes of increasing immigration, in particular from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries from which many people immigrate to the United States.

President Joe Biden has issued humanitarian parole to immigrants from Cuba, Haití, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In June, he signed an executive order to suspend the processing of most asylum claims at the southern border if illegal crossings reached an average of 2,500 migrants a day in a given week.

Larger packages of immigration policy changes have died in Congress, including one in February due to a lack of support from Republicans.

During the Biden-Harris administration, there have been all-time-high levels of immigration reported. But immigrants cannot vote in a U.S. election until they become naturalized. This naturalization process takes years.

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