Texas Sec. of State Asks for Citizenship Data From Feds

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson asked the Biden administration earlier this week "to provide citizenship data" ahead of the November election, "to help Texas maintain secure voter rolls."

Nelson sent a letter to the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Wednesday, requesting information on citizenship and immigration status to ensure that noncitizens are not voting in Texas elections.

Under federal law, USCIS is required to provide information "regarding the citizenship and immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual." The Immigration and Naturalization Service is also required to verify or "ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual within the jurisdiction of the agency for any purpose authorized by law, by providing the requested verification or status information."

"In other words, states may request citizenship information, and USCIS must provide it," the letter stated.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a post on X that the Lone Star State "demands this information."

"The federal government must stop hiding the ball," Abbott said on Wednesday. "We must have clean elections where only eligible voters cast votes."

In the letter, Nelson requested that USCIS provide current citizenship or immigration status information for certain individuals who are registered to vote in Texas but have not yet validated their citizenship through a state agency.

She said her office "is in the process of compiling a list of people on Texas' voter rolls whose citizenship cannot be verified using existing state sources," and requested a response by Oct. 2.

Once her office receives the requested information from USCIS, it will supply data to county voter registrars to prevent illegal voting by non-citizens, Nelson said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a letter to Nelson on the same day, urging her to request the information from USCIS.

"Federal law has made it nearly impossible for states to verify the citizenship of voter-registration applicants," Paxton said. "Although it is a crime for a noncitizen to register to vote, federal law restricts states from requiring proof of citizenship, and state agencies like those we lead have limited means to verify voter citizenship in many cases."

Nelson's request comes after Texas removed more than 1.1 million people from the state's voter rolls, including more than 134,000 people who moved out of the state, more than 457,000 who are deceased, and more than 6,500 noncitizens.

Of the noncitizens that were removed, around 1,930 have a history of voting. The secretary of state's office is currently in the process of transferring those records to the attorney general's office for further investigation and possible legal action.

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