If illegal immigrants are not allowed to vote in national elections, then they should not be allowed to vote in local elections, according to a former candidate for Congress.
“You can't have it both ways,” said Tony Rodriguez, who previously campaigned for the 30th Congressional District as an Independent. "The rules can't be okay for this and not for that because it will cause confusion.”
Rodriguez was reacting to news that the Santa Ana city council was considering filing a ballot measure that, if approved by voters in November, would allow illegal immigrants to vote in local city elections.
“A lot of people who are here illegally don't drive and now we're giving them an ID so they can get a job, vote and who knows what else, which is unfair,” Rodriguez told the Southern California Record. “You can’t move to Mexico, get an ID card, and automatically vote. It doesn’t work that way.”
As previously reported in the Epoch Times, City Councilman Ryan Hernandez, who proposed the measure, advocated at a council meeting last month that green card holders and undocumented workers pay taxes and, as a result, should be entitled to cast ballots in local elections.
“I disagree with Councilman Hernandez because they don't pay taxes,” Rodriguez said. “The only tax they pay is maybe a sales tax at the store and a lot of them have fraudulent social security numbers that are not their number. If it was their social security number, they would have a work Visa, so they don’t pay state and federal taxes.”
Out of 310,000 Santa Ana residents, 82,000 or 26% are illegal immigrants, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Allowing so many to vote so suddenly would sway the elections, according to Rodriguez.
“You have people like Gov. Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who want those people to vote whether it's a legal vote or not, they don't really care,” he said. “They just want them to vote for Democrats.”
A New York Supreme Court judge reversed a similar law that had been approved in that state because it violated the U.S. Constitution.
“Lack of education among the American people is the biggest problem,” Rodriguez added. “Imagine adding more people to that equation who aren't here legally and the only education they're getting is from the far left, which is what's happening now.”
The deadline for the city of Santa Ana to file such a ballot measure in order for it to appear on the November ballot is Aug. 12.