Jessie Rossman, ACLU of Michigan Staff Attorney

Alice is bright, articulate, caring and funny. She is the mother to a beautiful nine month old baby girl. She is studying to become a nurse to help people in her community. She is exactly the type of person that we need in Michigan right now. And yet, because of a mistaken policy enforced by the Secretary of State, she was almost removed from the country.

Alice legally entered the United States and has remained as a documented international student. A conscientious resident, she went to her local Secretary of State branch office to change the address on her driver’s license when she switched apartments. Unbeknownst to her, she was automatically registered to vote when she did so, even though she had disclosed her non-citizen status to the Secretary of State employee. Alice herself did not even know she was registered to vote until she received a letter from immigration officials charging her with removal from the country for falsely representing herself as an American citizen.

Alice was shocked when she heard this news. She had never knowingly claimed to be a U.S. citizen, she had never knowingly registered to vote and she had never attempted to vote in this country. I was shocked when I heard this news. Our immigration laws are meant to punish those who intentionally cloak themselves in a false claim of citizenship to obtain some benefit, not law-abiding individuals who are unknowingly and unintentionally caught up in a mistaken and misguided governmental policy. Luckily, and perhaps most important, the federal immigration officials who I contacted were shocked when they heard this news. They could not believe that Alice was about to be removed from this country, and they recommended that removal proceedings be terminated.

Unfortunately, not everyone in Alice’s position has such an outcome. Alarmingly, several City Clerks have emphasized that it is a common occurrence for the Secretary of State to create a voter registration record for a non-citizen without their knowledge. It is less common, however, for these individuals to be represented by counsel when they face immigration consequences as a result of this policy. Without knowledge of the law, the system and the appropriate contacts, these individuals are often punished for what is truly the Secretary of State’s mistake.

Indeed, by the time I was put in touch with Alice, she had already had to request one continuance to find an attorney. Today, I walked out of the courtroom and celebrated along with her family over orange juice and banana cake. But other individuals, who never should have been put into the system in the first place, often are not so lucky. We need to get to the root of the problem and encourage the Secretary of State to end her mistaken policy of automatically registering individuals to vote irrespective of their citizenship status.