FACT FOCUS: Posts falsely claim Obama urged noncitizens to vote in 2016
As President Donald Trump pushes for stricter proof of citizenship laws ahead of the midterms, social media users are falsely alleging that an old clip shows former President Barack Obama telling people in the U.S. illegally to vote in the 2016 election.
The clip is from a video posted by mitú, a Latino media company, in which actress Gina Rodriguez interviews Obama about voting myths. Claims spreading online misrepresent his responses to questions about whether the election is rigged and the possibility that voting could inadvertently reveal information to immigration authorities about the voter or their family.
Here's a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: A clip from a 2016 interview shows then-President Barack Obama encouraging people in the U.S. illegally to vote in the upcoming election.
THE FACTS: This is false. The clip has been shortened to make it seem as though Obama is telling people that everyone in the country is allowed to vote. In reality, Obama urges people who can legally vote, including Latino citizens, to cast a ballot. He does not advocate for noncitizen voting of any kind.
But social media users had a different take.
“Now that election fraud is in the spotlight, this video is arguably the most concrete evidence that the Dems use illegals to cheat,” reads one X post that had been liked and shared more than 8,500 times as of Thursday. “Flashback to 11/04/2016: Then President Obama openly encouraged illegals to vote in the 2016 election, and assured them that ICE and Federal law enforcement will NOT seek them out or deport them if they vote.” The clip included in the post starts with Obama saying, "If you want to vote and you show up at your polling place, they can't stop you.”
In the full video, Rodriguez asks Obama if the election is rigged. He says it is not and that in the U.S. “there is a tradition of making it hard for people to vote," efforts that have historically targeted African Americans. He continues: "But here’s the good news — even though people try to discourage you from voting, if you want to vote and you show up at your polling place, they can’t stop you from voting.
Rodriguez then discusses the fear often held by immigrants that voting might reveal information about relatives who are in the country illegally.
“So if I vote, will immigration know where I live? Will they come for my family?” she asks.
“Not true,” Obama said. "And the reason is, first of all, when you vote, you are a citizen yourself.” He adds that voting means speaking for oneself as well as others in one’s community, including people “who can’t legally vote.”
A spokesperson for Obama declined to comment.
Multiple studies and investigations in individual states have shown that noncitizens casting ballots in federal elections is exceedingly rare. A 1996 U.S. law makes it illegal for noncitizens to vote in elections for president or members of Congress. Violators can be fined and imprisoned for up to a year. They can also be deported.
When people register to vote, they confirm under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Federal law requires states to regularly maintain their voter rolls and remove anyone who is ineligible, a process that could identify immigrants living in the country illegally.
No state constitutions explicitly allow noncitizens to vote, and many states have laws that prohibit noncitizens from voting for state offices such as governor or attorney general. Some municipalities do allow voting by noncitizens in some local elections such as for school board and city council.
And yet Trump and other Republicans have continually asserted that voting by noncitizens is rampant in U.S. elections.
In an address to the nation last week, Trump said that a new Department of Homeland Security investigation had identified approximately 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections. There is no allegation, however, that any of those people actually voted. And the data, which is based on state voter rolls and public records that are often erroneous or incomplete, has not been verified.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, said on Tuesday that about 6,600 people who indicated they were noncitizens while obtaining New Jersey driver's licenses and other state IDs were improperly registered to vote in 2023 and 2024. She blamed a Motor Vehicle Commission system software error and said a preliminary analysis showed that fewer than 400 of those who registered that way went on to cast ballots.
The White House used the revelation to promote Trump's SAVE America Act, which would require people to show documentary proof of citizenship before they register to vote and impose voter ID requirements nationwide. The measure has passed the U.S. House but has not gotten a vote in the Senate, where even some Republicans oppose it.
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