Days before the election last week, a video of President Barack Obama reportedly encouraging illegal immigrants to vote appeared on the web. Since voting in the U.S. is one of the main rights that are only available to citizens, this could lead to millions of felony counts if proven true.
During the presidential race, Hillary Clinton’s camp and the Democratic Party appealed to minorities and migrants for their support for the candidate in an attempt to beat Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in the polls. However, as proven on Nov. 8, majority of the people in the country still chose Trump as their next president.
After he was elected as the new leader of the country, Trump recently hinted that one of his first moves as president would be to deport up to three million immigrants who are staying in the country illegally. According to reports, these individuals have criminal records.
Many of these immigrants could be the same ones who may have voted for Clinton during the election. Last week, before the electoral votes were counted, Obama appeared in an interview with television personality Gina Rodriguez and hinted that undocumented immigrants should vote.
“When you vote, you are a citizen yourself,” Obama said when asked if illegal immigrants would get deported if they vote. “And there is not a situation where the voting rolls somewhere are transferred over and people start investigating, etc.”
“The sanctity of the vote is strictly confidential in terms of who you voted for,” he added. “If you have a family member who maybe is undocumented, then you have an even greater reason to vote.”
Obama’s statements in the video surely sounds enticing for anyone illegally staying in the country to vote during the election. After all, not only will they not get deported, but it will also serve as a step closer to their citizenship, according to Obama.
But, as noted by the J. Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, what Obama said goes against the integrity of the voting system of the U.S. Since the right to vote is only reserved for legitimate citizens of the country, it is considered as a felony if an illegal immigrant votes during a national election.
“Well, it’s a felony,” Adams told Life Gazette. “But it’s the completion of a multi-year effort by the Left to get aliens on the rolls… This is not a surprise at all to me.”
If proven that the Democratic Party and its former frontrunner Clinton really encouraged immigrants to vote, then they could end up facing millions of felony charges.
