Gov. Landry targets 'noncitizens’'in Louisiana
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry called a news conference Monday to publicize his signing of an executive order that will monitor “noncitizens” in the state and discourage them from trying to register to vote.
His action follows a trend from other conservative Republicans who allege, without firm proof, that noncitizens will try to vote illegally in this year’s election. Landry referenced illegal immigration several times during the news conference, criticizing Democratic President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, for their border policy.
“Everytime an illegal alien votes, it cancels out the vote of a citizen. That’s a disenfranchisement of American citizens,” Landry said.
The governor’s order requires all state agencies that offer voter registration forms to the public, as called for under federal law, include notice that it is illegal for noncitizens to vote. It also directs the state Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV) to compile a list of people who have been issued a temporary, 180-day Louisiana driver’s license or identification card. The agency will then provide the list to Secretary of State Nancy Landry, a Republican who is not related to the governor, so she can cross-check it against voter rolls.
Attorney General Liz Murrill, who also took part in the news conference, said the OMV has issued more than 40,000 temporary IDs. Those applicants could have been given voter registration forms, she added, and some might have unintentionally registered.
Nancy Landry said 48 noncitizens have been removed from Louisiana’s voter rolls since 2022, though she could not confirm whether any of them have actually voted.
Monday’s news conference came about two weeks after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, also a Republican, issued an executive order removing 6,303 “noncitizens” who had “accidentally or maliciously attempted to register” to vote in his state, according to a NBC News report.
The news spread quickly with GOP leaders holding it up as evidence of widespread voter fraud. However, Youngkin’s Aug. 7 order didn’t state whether any of the 6,303 people removed from the voter rolls over the past 18 months actually voted or if there was an error and they later turned out to be citizens. The Virginia governor’s office didn’t provide that information when asked by NBC News.
Local officials who spoke to NBC News attributed the bulk of the removals to errors made when people filled out paperwork or online forms when asked about their citizenship.
Gov. Landry used his executive order to slam Biden’s immigration policy for the U.S.-Mexico border, saying misleadingly that 7.8 million people have entered the country illegally since he entered the White House. The statistic he cited refers to the number of Border Patrol “encounters” and is not the same thing as the number of individuals who illegally crossed the border. The governor included the statistic, as well as the number of “gotaways” — those who cross but aren’t apprehended — in his order.
The governor’s description U.S. Customs and Border Patrol statistics are often misconstrued and fail to capture the full picture of immigration. As an analysis in the Christian Science Monitor in April pointed out, “it’s not accurate to simply add up encounters and gotaways as a proxy for illegal immigration.”
Fact-checking state leaders claims
Claim: Gov. Landry said Monday the Biden administration has allowed 7.8 million people to enter the United States illegally.
Fact check: False. The number the governor was looking for is actually higher at about 8.3 million, but it is inaccurate to refer to it as the number of people who entered the U.S. illegally or the number of people who crossed the border in general. The number refers to “encounters” that Border Patrol agents had at the border, including interactions with undocumented migrants who were refused entry or were later expelled, as well as those who were later granted legal status. Many “encounters” are interactions that agents have repeatedly with the same people who try more than once to cross the border. As Congressional Research Service staff told lawmakers: “Encounter statistics refer to counts of interactions between USBP and migrants, and not counts of unique individuals.”
Claim: Secretary of State Nancy Landry said U.S. Border Patrol has reported 1.1 million migrant encounters at the nation’s southern border so far this year.
Fact check: Her number is actually low. Figures through July show more than 1.9 million encounters, though the numbers have been in sharp decline since Biden’s new immigration policies took effect in June.
The immigration crisis has been worsening for decades. While there have been more border encounters under Biden than there were under President Donald Trump, there were also more encounters in 2019 under Trump than there were in any of the eight years under President Barack Obama. A significant portion of the higher counts under Biden have been attributed to a Trump policy that allowed migrants to try multiple times to enter the U.S., inflating encounter numbers, according to a congressional report on the immigration data.
Under Trump’s pandemic-era rule known as Title 42, in place until May 2023, Border Patrol agents could expel migrants on public health grounds, but migrants could try again to cross without penalty, driving a fourfold increase in people trying to enter the U.S. illegally more than once per fiscal year. According to the Christian Science Monitor, this drove the reentry rate from 7% in 2019 to 27% in 2021.
Gov. Landry also failed to mention that border encounters and apprehensions have plummeted since Biden’s new immigration order took effect in June. Migrant apprehensions at the border have fallen 77% from their height in December 2023, according to a BBC article citing Border Patrol data.
Biden’s order instituted conservative reforms, written and supported by congressional Republicans until Trump urged them to kill the legislation out of concern that allowing Democrats to fix the border crisis would weaken his campaign to return to the White House.
Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and X.