Foreign influence in our elections is bad, unless done by illegal aliens

July 29, 2020

By Dale Wilcox

It is becoming increasingly difficult to refute the idea that as civilization advances, our collective memories are shrinking. It’s as if we can’t remember things that just happened a few short years ago. Whether the cause is advancing technology, the breakneck pace of our world or growing self-absorption, we are losing our ability to connect our past to our present. This can only bring bad consequences.

A recent example is the threat of foreign influence in our elections. Remember that? Barely a year ago the headlines were buzzing with the specter of Russian intelligence agents meddling in our 2020 presidential election, same as supposedly happened in 2016. Back then, the media breathlessly proclaimed the purported hack of our election to be as sinister as the attack on Pearl Harbor. Wherever you sit on the ideological spectrum, the message was clear: foreign influence bad; electoral integrity good.

To return to the present, we apparently have forgotten about that whole foreign-influence-bad thing. When President Trump recently signed an executive order to not count illegal aliens for the purpose of determining how many representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives are apportioned to each state, the very same people who railed about Russian influence howled in protest. Either some cannot remember the recent past, or they are hopelessly captive to their hyper-partisanship.

Make no mistake, foreign influence in our elections is indeed a bad thing. The biggest threat to our electoral integrity comes not from Russians, but from allowing illegal aliens to affect congressional apportionment.

Absent President Trump’s recent order, states can increase their number of representatives in Congress if they have more illegals aliens. More representation means more political clout in Washington and more ability to direct federal dollars home to those states. And when millions of illegal aliens are concentrated in just a few states, counting them gives political power to foreign nationals who choose to come here in violation of our laws, and takes power from Americans by diluting their votes. One can easily see the noxious incentive that creates for states: flood your state with illegal aliens and reap the political and financial rewards. 

More representatives in Congress also means more votes for a state in the Electoral College. Another reward for encouraging foreign nationals to violate our immigration laws is to receive more importance in presidential elections. This is not the policy of a country that wants to be sound and prosperous for the long term.

President Trump’s apportionment order raises another question: is there any founding principle of this country we are not prepared to abandon? Americans are not united by their DNA, but by our belief in uniquely American ideas such as the Bill of Rights and that we are endowed with those rights by a Creator, not government. That is why we have taught these concepts to our children from an early age.

Those who apply for U.S. citizenship legally are similarly required to learn about America’s history and its commitment to individual liberty. Foreign nationals here illegally, by contrast, have none of that grounding. They often come from countries run by oppressive dictatorships where the United States is despised. An oppressive nanny state is often all they know and expect from government. Unscrupulous politicians see these people as gullible marks whose votes can be purchased with the promise of a utopia that can never exist. That is precisely why such politicians are staunchly opposed to any measure that restricts illegal aliens from our electoral process.

Electoral integrity is one of the vital pillars upon which our country stands. To abandon it in the name of political correctness and the quest to consolidate political power is to set our country on a downward spiral from which it may never recover. At that point we will be no better than the authoritarian, corrupt and poverty-stricken states from which many prospective immigrants flee. This is a battle worth fighting. Few other issues are as important. Let us not forget our history when we need it most.
Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel at theImmigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of illegal migration.

Also published at: Dale L. Wilcox, Foreign influence in our elections is bad, unless done by illegal aliens, American Thinker, July 29, 2020.