Florida authorities on Oct. 16 sued the U.S. government, alleging U.S. officials are illegally refusing to cooperate with Florida’s effort to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls.
State law requires state authorities to maintain accurate voter registration records. Federal law requires the federal government to respond to inquiries from federal, state, and local government agencies that are “seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual within the jurisdiction of the agency.”
But when the Florida Department of State asked U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for data on individuals whom Florida authorities identified as potentially being noncitizens who are registered to vote, USCIS’s director wrote back and said the agency could not offer any information that is not contained within the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program….