An immigration think tank is calling for Congress to consider mandating the use of a citizenship verification for voter registration after the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to make the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements more user-friendly for state and local election offices.

Last week, the DHS settled a case with four states–Florida, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio—to overhaul the citizenship verification system.

The report, which the Center for Immigration Studies published Monday, characterizes the 1993 National Voter Registration Act as “fatally flawed,” claiming that it “not only facilitates vote fraud but also results in legal aliens mistakenly voting and putting themselves at risk.”

“Congress should revisit the NVRA’s prohibition against officials ‘mak[ing] any statement … or tak[ing] any action the purpose or effect of which is to discourage … applicant[s] from registering to vote’ to allow for discouraging non-citizens from registering,” CIS Senior Legal Fellow George Fishman writes in the report. “In addition, Congress should encourage, or to the extent possible mandate, states to utilize the SAVE program to verify the citizenship status of voters and applicants to register.”

Settlement With States
The new settlement requires the federal government to modernize the citizenship verification tools so every state and territory—not just the four litigants—can more easily prevent non-citizens from voting.

“This agreement will continue U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ efforts to improve the SAVE program for states to combat voter fraud, protect election integrity, and verify immigration and citizenship status for state benefits and programs,” Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Daily Signal in a statement.

“The Department of Homeland Security urges all states to adopt SAVE and join us in enforcing the law and safeguarding the voting rights of American citizens,” McLaughlin added.

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