San Francisco Hopes Trump Fear Will Lead To Voting Rights For Illegal Immigrants In City

AP


BY: Joe Schoffstall
June 9, 2016 3:43 pm


The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is hoping that residents of the city who fear Donald Trump’s rhetoric and policy proposals will flock to the polls this November and support giving voting rights to illegal immigrants.

Eric Mar, a supervisor in the city, put forth a proposed charter amendment on Tuesday that would allow illegal immigrants who have kids that are 18 years or younger in the public school system the right to vote in local school board elections, Fox News reports.

Mar said he thinks that Donald Trump being on the ballot this November will drive Latinos who are “disgusted” by his politics to the polls on Election Day.

“With Donald Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant sentiments, there is a reaction from many of us who are disgusted by those politics,” Mar said. “I think that’s going to ensure there is strong Latino turnout as well as other immigrant turnout.”

The current ballot measure is the third such attempt to give voting rights to illegal immigrants in San Francisco.

In 2004, voters narrowly rejected an identical ballot measure by a 51 percent to 49 percent margin. In 2010, a second attempt was shot down by voters, 54 percent to 46 percent.

David Chiu, a California assembly member who introduced the 2004 measure to give illegal immigrants the right to vote, says that residents of the city must come together and stand up against Trump.

“With the anti-immigrant rhetoric from Donald Trump, it is more important than ever that we come together as San Franciscans to stand up for our immigrant communities and support their civic engagement,” Chiu said in a statement.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, believes that it’s wrong to give voting rights to individuals who have not made a commitment to the U.S. Constitution by becoming citizens.

“It is wrong to extend the vote to individuals who have not entered the American social compact or made a commitment to our Constitution, our law, and our cultural and political heritage by becoming citizens,” von Spakovsky told Fox News. “It is even worse to extend the franchise to illegal aliens whose very first act is to violate our laws; that encourages contempt for the law.”

Marr staffers confirmed that the measure will go before the rules committee within weeks and then could be presented to the board of supervisors. If the board approves the measure, it will appear on the ballot this November.

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