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A reader writes us to ask: “The reason Democrats want to give undocumented immigrants free healthcare is to get their votes. If that is true why didn’t you provide that additional information?”
This is a good question. The claim that Democrats support “illegal immigration” to gain votes is common in American politics. It suggests Democrats deliberately want to change who votes in America for their own benefit.
This statement includes several arguments that often get mixed together:
- Undocumented immigrants are voting illegally right now
- Their presence shifts political power through how congressional seats get divided up
- Democrats want to turn them into voters later through citizenship
This analysis looks at each argument separately. We’ll examine the laws around voting, how the citizenship process actually works, how population counts affect representation, and what Democrats say they want.
Can Non-Citizens Vote in Federal Elections?
The simplest version of this theory is that non-citizens—especially undocumented immigrants—are casting ballots in federal elections and helping Democrats win.
This runs into an immediate problem: it’s illegal.
The Law Is Clear
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 made it explicitly illegal for anyone who isn’t a U.S. citizen to vote in federal elections.
The law is in 18 U.S. Code § 611. It says it’s “unlawful for any alien to vote in any election” for President, Vice President, Senator, or Representative.
The penalties are serious. A non-citizen who votes in a federal election can face:
- Fines
- Up to one year in prison
- Deportation
- A permanent ban on ever becoming a citizen
Even lying about being a citizen to register carries harsh penalties. For someone living in the U.S. illegally or hoping to become a citizen someday, voting illegally would be an enormous risk for essentially no reward.
Multiple Safety Checks
The voting system has layers of protection to keep ineligible people from voting.
When you register to vote, you must sign a form stating you’re a citizen. This signature is made under penalty of perjury. Lying on this form is a felony.
States check their voter rolls against other databases, especially the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Since the REAL ID Act, getting a compliant driver’s license requires proof of legal status and citizenship. States can set up their systems so only people who proved citizenship when getting their license can register to vote.
Michigan integrated REAL ID with automatic voter registration and drastically reduced non-citizens accidentally added to voter rolls. Colorado sends notices to people whose citizenship is questionable. If they don’t respond and don’t show up to a hearing, their registration gets canceled.
If someone suspects a non-citizen voted, they can report it to law enforcement.
What Happens
Studies consistently show that non-citizen voting is extremely rare.
The Brennan Center for Justice studied the 2016 election. They surveyed officials in 42 jurisdictions covering 23.5 million votes. Suspected non-citizen voting was 0.0001% of votes cast. Forty of the 42 jurisdictions reported zero incidents.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative organization, maintains a database of election fraud. They found only 23 cases of non-citizen voting across the entire country from 2003 to 2022.
Non-citizens do sometimes get registered by mistake. This usually happens at the DMV due to confusion or administrative errors. But they typically get caught before they can actually vote.
Georgia investigated this in 2022. They found 1,634 cases between 1997 and 2022 where a non-citizen may have tried to register. Every single one was put in “pending” status and blocked from the voter rolls until they could prove citizenship.
The system catches these mistakes before they become illegal votes.
Many Republican officials push for stricter voter ID laws despite the lack of evidence of a real problem. Voting rights advocates warn these laws could make it harder for millions of eligible citizens to vote—people who don’t have a passport or birth certificate readily available.
What About Local Elections?
There’s one exception worth mentioning, though it doesn’t affect this argument much.
Federal law only prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections. It doesn’t stop them from voting in state or local elections. But this is extremely rare.
No state allows non-citizens to vote in statewide elections. Arkansas was the last state to stop the practice, in 1926.
As of 2023, a handful of cities—mostly in Maryland and Vermont, plus Washington, D.C.—let non-citizen residents vote in local elections for mayor, city council, or school board. San Francisco and Oakland let non-citizen parents vote only in school board elections.
The numbers are tiny. In D.C., as of April 2024, only 372 of 450,070 registered voters were non-citizens. Turnout among eligible non-citizens is often below 0.5%. Many immigrants fear that voting, even when legal, could hurt their chances of getting a green card or citizenship later.
These local laws have zero impact on Congress or the presidency. They mainly serve as a talking point that can make people suspicious of the broader system.
The Long Road to Citizenship
If non-citizens can’t vote, maybe the theory is about the future. Maybe Democrats want to support immigration now so those immigrants become citizens and vote Democratic later.
Let’s look at how long that actually takes.
Step One: Get a Green Card
Before someone can even think about citizenship, they need a green card. This means becoming a Lawful Permanent Resident.
Getting a green card isn’t easy. You can’t just apply. You need to qualify through specific channels.
The main pathways are family-based or employment-based.
Family sponsorship. A close relative who is a U.S. citizen or green card holder can sponsor you. “Immediate relatives” of citizens—spouses, minor children, and parents—have the fastest path. Other categories have annual limits and waiting periods. Some people wait decades, depending on their relationship and country of origin.
Employment sponsorship. An employer can sponsor you for a specific job. Often the employer must first prove no qualified U.S. workers are available. These have annual caps too.
If you’re in the U.S. without authorization, these pathways are usually closed to you. There’s no line to get in. You’d need to qualify under these narrow categories first. For most undocumented immigrants, that’s impossible without a change in the law.
Step Two: Wait Years More
Once you have a green card, you still can’t apply for citizenship right away.
You must wait five years of continuous residence. If you’re married to a U.S. citizen, it’s three years.
“Continuous residence” has strict rules. You must keep your home in the U.S. If you leave for more than six months, you may have to start over and prove you maintained ties to the U.S.
You must also be physically present in the U.S. for at least half that time—30 months for the five-year track, 18 months for the three-year track.
Step Three: Pass the Tests
After you meet the time requirements, you file Form N-400 for naturalization. The form is extensive. It requires detailed personal history, employment records, travel records, and family information. The filing fee exceeds $700.
Processing takes six to nine months on average, though it varies by location.
You’ll attend a biometrics appointment for fingerprints and photos. Then comes the naturalization interview. A USCIS officer reviews your application and gives you a test.
You must:
- Demonstrate basic English (speaking, reading, writing)
- Pass a civics test on U.S. history and government
If you pass, you attend an oath ceremony. You renounce allegiance to other countries and swear to support the U.S. Constitution.
Only then do you become a citizen. Only then can you register to vote.
The Total Timeline
Add it all up:
- Get a green card (can take many years)
- Wait 3-5 years as a permanent resident
- Complete the application and interview process (about 1 year)
For someone arriving legally today, that’s minimum 4-6 years from green card to voting. Often much longer.
For someone here without authorization, they’d first need Congress to create a path to legal status. That adds years or decades.
This undermines the idea that this is a useful political strategy. A politician supporting policy changes today won’t see those immigrants vote for many years. They’ll probably be out of office. The “return on investment” is so distant and uncertain that other motivations—economic needs, humanitarian concerns, ideology—seem more likely to drive policy.
Also, the naturalization process is designed to be a period of integration. People live here, work here, raise families here for years or decades. Assuming their political views will stay frozen over that entire journey ignores how much life experience can change a person’s outlook.
The Census Argument
There’s a more sophisticated version of this theory. It says immigration helps Democrats not through direct voting, but by shifting political power through the census and how congressional seats get divided up.
How Apportionment Works
The Constitution requires this. Article I, Section 2, as amended by the 14th Amendment, says Representatives “shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State.”
Notice it says “persons,” not “citizens.”
Every 10 years, the Census Bureau counts everyone living in each state—citizens, green card holders, visa holders, undocumented immigrants, everyone.
Then the 435 House seats get divided among the 50 states using a mathematical formula. States with growing populations may gain seats. States with shrinking or slower-growing populations may lose them.
This matters for the Electoral College too. Each state gets electoral votes equal to its number of House members plus two (for its Senators). So changes in House seats directly affect presidential elections.
The Argument
Groups that want lower immigration, like the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), argue this gives Democrats an unfair advantage.
Their reasoning: non-citizens aren’t evenly spread across America. They concentrate in states and districts that vote Democratic—California, New York, Illinois.
According to CIS analysis, including immigrants in the 2020 Census shifted 17 House seats. This gave a net gain of 14 seats to “Blue States.”
They also argue it violates “one person, one vote.” Districts with many non-citizens have fewer eligible voters. So voters in high-immigrant Democratic districts have more power than voters in low-immigrant Republican districts. CIS research found that in 2022, winning candidates in districts with few non-citizens got 73% more votes on average than winners in districts where one in five adults was a non-citizen.
What Other Research Shows
The constitutional mechanism is real. But how big is the partisan effect? That’s hotly debated.
A rigorous academic study in PNAS Nexus modeled what would happen if undocumented residents weren’t counted from 1980 to 2020. They found the impact was “negligible.” At most two House seats and three Electoral College votes would have shifted between parties in any year. This would have had “no bearing on party control of the House or the outcome of presidential” elections.
Pew Research Center projected in 2020 that removing unauthorized immigrants from the count would shift only three seats total. California, Florida, and Texas would each lose one. Alabama, Minnesota, and Ohio would each gain one. That’s a mixed partisan result.
Making things even more complicated, a Cato Institute report found that between 2019 and 2023, Republican-led states gained about 1.2 million non-citizens while Democratic-led states gained only about 72,000.
Recent demographic trends may not fit the established assumptions.
| Study/Source | Stated Impact on House Seats | Stated Partisan Advantage |
|---|---|---|
| Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) | 17 seats shifted after 2020 Census | Net gain of 14 seats for Democratic-leaning states |
| PNAS Nexus (Academic Journal) | Maximum of 2 seats would have shifted between parties (1980-2020) | No bearing on party control of the House |
| Pew Research Center (2020 Projection) | 3 total seats would have shifted | Mixed partisan impact (CA, TX, FL lose one; AL, MN, OH gain one) |
The apportionment mechanism is real and important. But the claim that it provides a large, decisive, intentional advantage to Democrats is contested, not settled fact.
The argument’s political power may come less from hard data and more from its ability to frame immigration as a threat to equal representation. That’s a narrative that resonates with voters who feel their voice is being diluted.
What Do Democrats Want?
To evaluate whether Democrats are motivated by getting immigrant votes, we should look at what they actually propose.
Democratic platforms, major legislation, and statements from different factions show a much more complicated picture than “open borders.”
Official Positions
Democratic positions consistently blend immigration reform with border security.
The 2024 Democratic Party Platform includes “To secure the border and fix the broken immigration system” as a core goal.
Their main legislative proposal is the U.S. Citizenship Act, first introduced in 2021 and again in 2023.
This isn’t instant “amnesty.” It’s a long path to citizenship with requirements.
To qualify, you must:
- Have been in the U.S. continuously since January 1, 2023
- Pass criminal and national security background checks
- Pay taxes
If you meet these, you could apply for temporary legal status. After five years in that status, you could apply for a green card. Three years after that, you could apply for citizenship.
That’s an eight-year minimum from law passage to potential voting eligibility. This doesn’t look like a short-term vote-getting strategy.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi framed it as meeting “our responsibility to provide strong, smart border security that serves our country’s needs, is consistent with our values” while celebrating America’s immigrant heritage.
Centrist Democrats Push for Enforcement
The strongest evidence against a monolithic “open borders” party comes from within the party itself.
The New Democrat Coalition is a group of about 115 centrist House Democrats. They’ve been actively working to shift the party toward more enforcement-heavy policies.
Their 2025 policy framework explicitly calls for:
- Funding to maintain at least 22,000 full-time Border Patrol agents
- More Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry to stop fentanyl
- Better border technology—surveillance systems, drones, cargo scanners
- A clear policy that undocumented immigrants convicted of violent crimes “must be held accountable” and deported
Why? Politics. Polling consistently shows Democrats are at a disadvantage with voters on immigration. Members like Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York credit their success flipping Republican districts to adopting a “strict message on border security enforcement.”
The New Democrats see immigration as a political liability that has cost them elections. Their framework is designed to appeal to moderate and swing voters who care about border security.
This is a defensive move, not an offensive strategy to import voters. Pressure from current voters is pushing a big chunk of the party toward the center.
Other Stated Reasons
Democrats publicly emphasize economic and humanitarian reasons for their positions.
Economic arguments. The New Democrat Coalition’s framework includes creating new visa programs for industries with worker shortages. They want more green cards for international graduates of U.S. universities. They want a visa for immigrant entrepreneurs. The argument is that immigration is essential for economic growth as the U.S.-born population ages.
Humanitarian arguments. The Democratic platform emphasizes ensuring a fair process for people fleeing violence to seek asylum. It includes finding a solution for “Dreamers”—people brought to the U.S. as children who grew up here and often know no other home.
The Democratic position on immigration isn’t one strategy. It’s a complicated compromise trying to hold together a coalition that includes:
- A progressive base focused on human rights
- Business and economic interests wanting workers and talent
- Political operatives who must appeal to security-conscious swing voters
Attributing this complex platform to a single, long-term, highly uncertain electoral strategy ignores more immediate and powerful forces at play.
Do Immigrants Vote Democratic?
The whole theory assumes that once immigrants become citizens, they’ll reliably vote Democratic.
For many years, data supported this. But the 2024 election changed everything.
Historical Patterns
Naturalized citizens used to be a reliable Democratic constituency.
Research from 1994 to 2012 showed that as the share of naturalized immigrants grew in an area, the Republican vote share fell, especially in House races.
A 2023 survey by KFF found immigrants overall were twice as likely to say Democrats (32%) represented their views better than Republicans (16%). Among naturalized citizens specifically, 37% favored Democrats and 21% favored Republicans.
This pattern was especially strong among Hispanic, Asian, and Black immigrants.
This long-standing trend was the basis for thinking more immigrant citizens meant more Democratic voters.
The 2024 Shift
The 2024 election shattered this assumption.
Analysis by the Cato Institute, citing data from Democratic strategist David Shor, found a stunning reversal. Naturalized immigrants favored Joe Biden by 27 percentage points in 2020. In 2024, they favored Donald Trump by one point.
That’s a 28-point swing.
Pew Research Center confirmed this. Naturalized citizens backed Biden over Trump 59% to 38% in 2020 (a 21-point margin). In 2024, they split nearly evenly: 51% for Kamala Harris, 47% for Trump (a 4-point margin).
Pew found the shift was driven by changes in turnout. Naturalized citizens who voted in 2024 but not in 2020 broke for Trump 57% to 37%.
This wasn’t limited to one group. It happened across racial and ethnic categories.
| Voter Group | 2020 Democratic % | 2020 Republican % | 2024 Democratic % | 2024 Republican % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Naturalized Citizens | 59% | 38% | 51% | 47% |
| White Naturalized Citizens | 57% | 41% | 43% | 55% |
| Hispanic Naturalized Citizens | 58% | 39% | 48% | 51% |
| Asian Naturalized Citizens | 63% | 35% | 53% | 46% |
Source: Pew Research Center. 2024 Democratic candidate is Kamala Harris; 2020 is Joe Biden. Republican candidate is Donald Trump in both elections.
An Unreliable Strategy
The 2024 results show the immigrant vote isn’t a reliable Democratic bloc anymore.
Analysis from Brookings Institution noted that while immigrant voters overall didn’t give Trump a majority, he made “significant enough gains within a fractured Democratic coalition” to matter.
As immigrants integrate into American society over years or decades, their political priorities may evolve. Issues like the economy, inflation, and crime can become more important than immigration itself.
The immigrant electorate is diverse. Political preferences vary by country of origin, religion, socioeconomic status, and time in the U.S. Polling before 2024 showed that while Latino voters overall favored Democrats, Latino Protestants strongly supported Republicans.
This growing complexity fundamentally undermines the idea that supporting immigration is a straightforward path to electoral gain. The 2024 election showed immigrant voters aren’t a captive constituency. They’re an electorate that must be competed for on many issues.
Any strategy based on “demography is destiny” rests on an increasingly shaky foundation. Becoming an American citizen seems to make immigrants’ voting behavior more like the broader American public—which means divided and unpredictable.
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