U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) are calling on United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to immediately respond to Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate’s request for information regarding the citizenship status of 2,176 registered Iowa voters who self-identified as non-citizens. USCIS’ Des Moines Field Office has already completed a review of the 2,176 names at issue, yet USCIS headquarters refuses to make the information available to state officials.
The Iowa senators’ push follows Pate’s urgent request for federal intervention after USCIS “refus[ed] to release this key information.”
“Time is of the essence, as voting in Iowa has been underway since October 16 and Iowa election law requires absentee ballots be separated from their carrier envelopes on Monday, November 4,” Grassley and Ernst noted in their letter to USCIS. “We expect a response to this letter and for the information to be released to Iowa’s Secretary of State by end of day Friday, November 1. If that doesn’t happen, you will be playing into the very serious concerns of Iowans that the Biden-Harris administration is not following federal law and not taking reasonable measures to ensure only citizens are voting in our federal elections.”
Read the Iowa senators’ full letter HERE and below.
Ms. Ur M. Jaddou
Director
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
20 Massachusetts Avenue, 4th Floor
Washington, DC 20529
Director Jaddou:
It’s come to our attention that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has instructed USCIS’ Des Moines, Iowa field office to withhold information regarding citizenship of voter roll data requested by Iowa’s Secretary of State Paul Pate. The USCIS Iowa office has already manually reviewed every name that was provided to them. They have looked up and determined if the resident has naturalized or is a non-citizen. This data has been compiled since Monday, October 28. There is no excuse for withholding this information from the Secretary of State’s office when non-citizens are ineligible to vote in federal elections in accordance with longstanding federal law (e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 611).
Time is of the essence, as voting in Iowa has been underway since October 16 and Iowa election law requires absentee ballots be separated from their carrier envelopes on Monday, November 4. We expect a response to this letter and for the information to be released to Iowa’s Secretary of State by end of day Friday, November 1. If that doesn’t happen, you will be playing into the very serious concerns of Iowans that the Biden-Harris administration is not following federal law and not taking reasonable measures to ensure only citizens are voting in our federal elections.
Let us be very clear, all votes lawfully cast ought to be counted. The Secretary of State has outlined how measures and safeguards would be in place to ensure this fundamental right is preserved. It’s imperative for the federal government to provide this critical information to ensure Iowa can uphold this commitment to our citizens.
