The Trump administration has not only escalated violence against immigrants in recent weeks with the deaths of two Latino workers and parents at the hands of ICE agents. Now he also accuses them of being registered to vote fraudulently in their attempt to intimidate and frighten voters and undermine Americans' confidence in the electoral system ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.

That is to say, this government's attacks against immigrants are not limited to the violence of its immigration agents on the streets and in detention centers, violence that has claimed lives. And they do it with total impunity. The New York Times reported that local FBI offices will not be able to investigate confrontations with ICE agents since DHS itself will do so. All to ensure that there is no accountability.

What's more, according to border czar Tom Homan, the most recent ICE victims, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, in Houston, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, in Maine, would be alive if they had followed the agents' orders.

But in addition to being targets of violence, immigrants are a key part of Trump's campaign to promote the SAVE America Act, a measure that, under the excuse of preventing non-citizens from voting in elections fraudulently, would deprive 21 million Americans of their right to vote who do not have access to the documents that would be required to vote.

The measure would require a passport or birth certificate to register, present official photo identification to vote, and require states to share their voter lists with DHS to verify voter eligibility.

The SAVE Act does not have the votes in the Senate, and even if it were approved, it could not be implemented before the November elections. But there are fears that Trump's insistence is an attempt to interfere in those elections if the results were unfavorable to the Republicans.

An example of this was the speech he gave last Thursday to insist that the 2020 elections, which he lost to Joe Biden, were rigged and that there was interference from the Chinese.

In the context of that speech, the DHS indicated that “more than 250,000 non-citizens are illegally registered to vote in these four states: California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada”, states governed by Democrats.

It is not indicated whether, as is often the case, it is a list with errors and it is not indicated whether these people actually voted fraudulently.

New Jersey, for example, announced that a technical glitch allowed 6,600 noncitizens to register as voters even though they indicated they were not citizens when they applied for their driver's licenses. They did not register fraudulently on their own. Less than 400 voted.

But the governor of New Jersey, Mikie Sherill, recalled that it is a fraction of the 6.6 million voters in her state, and the figure does not support that it is a widespread fraud that has changed electoral results. “They were registered as Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters, and they were scattered throughout the state,” Sherrill stated.

Experts agree that non-citizen voting is not a widespread problem in the United States because a 1996 federal law expressly prohibits them from voting in federal elections. Those who do so face severe penalties including fines, imprisonment (or both), inadmissibility, and even deportation.

In 2017, the Brennan Center for Justice reviewed 2016 general election votes from 42 jurisdictions in 12 states and found only 30 votes suspected to have been from noncitizens, out of a total of 23.5 million votes in those jurisdictions.

But for Trump and the Republicans, perception has more weight than reality and the idea is to intimidate voters, especially those of color, with the threat of deploying ICE agents in voting centers, even if it is illegal, and sowing fear and doubt by using their favorite scapegoats, immigrants.

Although the only ones who tried to steal an election, that of 2020, were Trump and the mob of followers who led a bloody assault on the federal Capitol on January 6, 2021 to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory.

The texts published in this section are the sole responsibility of the authors, so La Opinión does not assume responsibility for them.