Speech #1030013930

Unfortunately. California. which has one of the most sophisticated tamperresistant drivers licenses available today. does not by law require documents proving citizenship for voter registration. According to the Census Bureau. 14.9 percent of Californias population are noncitizens. According to the 1991 INS statistical year book. the most current assessment by the INS of the foreignborn population in the United States. California has about 50 percent of the Nations immigrants and about onethird of its refugees and asylees. Unfortunately. California also has large numbers of illegal aliens. California has had several instances where voter registration materials were or may have been used to register noncitizens to vote. The most notable occurrence. I think this is striking. was in San Francisco where the U.S. attorney Russoniello conducted an investigation of bilingual ballot users on the information that many were noncitizens. Mr. Russoniello received information that persons were informing ineligible voters that they were in fact eligible to vote if they were married to a U.S. citizenwhich only gets you a green card if you applyor if they had lived in the United States a long time. which still does not get you citizenship. Also. the Spanish translation of the registration form erroneously stated a registrant "should be" rather than "must be" a citizen. The investigation revealed that 27 percent of the persons examined proved to be noncitizens. 40 percent have no records so that citizenship could not be determined. and only 32 percent were. in fact. citizens. The investigation was apparently terminated without further resolution. The San Francisco investigation and others demonstrate the reason why I think it is increasingly important for many States to require some form of proof of citizenship. I am extremely concerned about the problem of fraudulent documents. Fraudulent documents will greatly reduce the effect of employer sanctions. the law designed to take the job magnet out of illegal immigration. While my amendment does not address the problem of fraudulent documents. I offer it in the expectation that some document verification process. instead of no documentation verification process. will discourage some noncitizens from registering to vote and committing the resulting felonies. I offer my amendment to try to ensure that States will continue to have the right. if they wish. to require documents verifying citizenship. but only. as I say. if they so desire. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.