As the 2024 elections approachA false narrative spreading on conservative websites is stoking fears that people in the country illegally are attempting to vote in Alabama and across the country.

US Representative Dale Strong presented legislation on Friday to criminalize any non-citizen who attempts to vote, convert the crime into a serious crime. Strong referred to a Guatemalan woman in the US illegally who pleaded guilty in September to use false documentation to vote in at least four elections in Alabama.

“Anyone who is not a US citizen and votes in this election should be first in line to be deported. We must secure our elections,” he said in X.

His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Despite the growing number of claims from conservative media and public officials, There is little evidence that elections in Alabama, or elsewhere, are under widespread threat. of non-citizens trying to vote.

TO federal law of 1996 makes it illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections for president or members of Congress. Violators can be fined and imprisoned for up to one year. They can also be deported.

Noncitizens cannot vote in Alabama, said Laney Rawls, spokeswoman for the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office. AL.com on Friday.

Under state law, Alabama immigrants with legal status who obtain driver’s licenses have “FN” for “foreign national” clearly printed on their ID. Alabama election workers will check driver’s licenses to ensure voters are eligible as citizens.

“If someone presented a driver’s license with ‘FN’, which means foreign national, that would not allow them to identify themselves to vote,” said Limestone County Recorder Sandy Smith.

Smith said state election officials have ordered poll workers to look for the words “foreign national” on driver’s licenses.

The same day Strong announced his bill, a 1819 News publication indicated “that nothing prevents these immigrants from registering to vote or casting their vote.” 1819 News is a website that It was once owned by the Alabama Policy Institute.

“Concerned citizens may be the only reliable measure against possible electoral interference and fraud,” the article warned.

The article reported that an employee of the Limestone County Recorder’s Office stated that the recorder does not examine the citizenship of voters and that “If they have a valid driver’s license, they will be able to register to vote.” The name of the employee was not reported.

Smith said the information shared in the article about his office was false.

“No one said that in this office,” Smith said. “No one said you could lie about anything.” Efforts to reach 1819 News for a response were not immediately successful Saturday.

Smith said voters are asked to declare that what they have reported is true when they register to vote, including their citizenship status.

“(Immigrant ID) numbers are not acceptable identification numbers for voter registration and would never be verified in our voter registration system,” Smith said.

A day earlier in Georgia, a key state for former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urged Elon Musk to withdraw from X an “obviously fake” video showing a Haitian immigrant with fake ID voting multiple times. Georgia has discovered that 20 of the 8.2 million people registered to vote in the state are not US citizens.

Raffensperger’s statement came a day later The Daily Wire, a right-wing national media outlet, reported that several Alabama cities “are overrun by Haitian immigrants.” and that residents fear the cities “will become the next Springfield, Ohio.”

Springfield became the center of national attention when Trump falsely claimed at the presidential debate that Haitian immigrants there were eating dogs and cats.

Haitian immigrants have moved legally to Alabama after being granted Temporary Protected Status due to gang violence in Haiti.

There is no exact data on how many Haitians currently live in Alabama. In 2023, there were 2,370 Haitians living in the state.

Last summer, the Haitian community of Albertville faced “hateful rhetoric” after a photo of Haitians taking a bus to work at a local poultry factory was shared online with the false claim that they were being secretly bussed into the country.

Similar rhetoric has emerged in other Alabama cities, including Sylacauga, Enterprise and Athens.

“It has been great to work with (the Haitian community). They have been gracious with any help that has been offered,” said Emmett Moore, director of the Athens-Limestone Family Resource Center.

The center helps Haitian immigrant families with employment, food and other basic needs. “They seem like perfect people you would want to have as neighbors,” Moore said.

Limestone County District Attorney Brian Jones said he has not received complaints about immigrants trying to register to vote or crimes involving Haitians.

“I have yet to receive a single criminal case in the county system in which the Haitian was the accused.”

It is rare for immigrants to try vote in the United States, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC.

Bush-Joseph of the Migration Policy Institute said legal immigrants are not encouraged to vote because any illegal activity could cause them to lose their right to remain in the country.

“Local election officials have consistently said that noncitizen voting is extremely rare. One called it a ‘fake problem,'” Bush-Joseph added.

Carlos Alemán, director of the Alabama Hispanic and Immigrant Center, said that legal immigrants do not think about voting because they are not citizens and no political party has managed to resolve immigration policy, which gives them few incentives.

“This is just irresponsible and reckless speculation that anyone would do this,” he said of illegal voting. “I think it’s disappointing how easily they can say things without having any evidence that they happened.”

In October, a sued group of voters Alabama over the state’s attempt to remove voters it claimed were not noncitizens. He The Justice Department also filed a lawsuit against the state.

the program It removed more than 3,000 people from voter rolls and referred them to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office for possible prosecution. Of those, more than 2,074 were later deemed eligible to vote.

On October 16, U.S. District Judge Anna M. Manasco issued a preliminary injunction instruct Secretary of State Wes Allen to restore the active status of affected voters and notify them of their eligibility.