The City Council for College Park, home to 30,000 residents and 3,600 foreign students at the University of Maryland, voted 4-3 Tuesday night to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections.
And not only non-citizens who are in the country on student visas or green cards, but even those who are here illegally will be granted the right to vote in College Park starting in 2019.
It’s a concept that border hawks say may make conservatives recoil, but they’d better get used to it because it’s front and center on the agenda of open-borders globalists.
In fact, granting more “inclusive” rights to migrants is a central goal of the United Nations Agenda 2030 document embraced by the United States and more than 100 other countries in September 2015. It’s also part of the U.N.’s New Urban Agenda, which focuses on implementing the 2030 agenda through cities rather than nations.
College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn, who broke the tie Tuesday on the city council with his vote, said he hoped delaying the vote by a month would bring less attention to the matter. But the council chamber was jam-packed with citizens holding signs opposing the measure.
At least 24 people stood up to speak either for or against the controversial policy during a four-hour meeting Tuesday.
One woman was shown on local TV speaking angrily in favor of giving illegals the vote, lecturing the council members that the future of civil rights for LGBTs could be decided in a referendum they could not even vote on.
Watch video clip of angry pro-illegal alien citizen speaking Tuesday night in College Park.
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Some in favor of the proposal argued it would make the city “more inclusive.” Others called it a violation of the U.S. Constitution and a method of undermining the sovereign integrity of the United States.
A majority of the comments posted to the city’s website were overwhelmingly opposed to the measure.
Immigrants are still prohibited from voting in federal elections, such as for Congress and the president, and in statewide elections such as gubernatorial races.
“These are folks who have a significant stake in our community, and who rely on the facilities in our city,” College Park City Councilwoman Christine Nagle, who co-sponsored the measure, said. “To me, it just made sense.”
Roughly 21 percent of the town’s 30,000 residents are foreign-born.
Favorite tactic of totalitarians throughout history
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, sees the move as a dangerous ploy to cancel out the votes of citizens.
“It is outrageous. Voting is a right, a privilege and a duty for citizens. It’s the foundation of our republic,” Vaughan said. “If non-citizens can vote, even if in local elections only, what good is citizenship? What if the city of College Park should begin considering policies in which the interests of citizens and non-citizens diverge? This is a direct degradation of the rights of citizens.”
The ploy is an old trick used by despots the world over, she said.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, tried it recently in his country.
“Seeing his popularity waning, Erdogan suggested allowing the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey to have the vote, hopefully creating a new base of support for him to replace his lost support from the citizens of Turkey,” Vaughan said. “This is what totalitarians do – when the people don’t like them, they find an alternative people.”
College Park becomes the 11th city in Maryland to allow immigrants to be participate in local elections.
Spreading like a ‘cancer’ across U.S.
William Gheen, president and founder of Americans for Legal Immigration, said he expects the policy of non-citizen voting to spread like a “cancer” throughout the U.S., since most cities are run by Democrats and open-borders Republicans posing as conservatives. If they think they can get away with it, they will try it, Gheen said.
“Basically, the actions of the College Park council reinforce what we see across the country, which is a plan for illegal immigrants and non-citizens to eventually vote and give Democrat socialists permanent control of all U.S. elections,” Gheen told WND.
“DACA, the DREAM Act and so-called comprehensive immigration reform/amnesty legislation in Washington are all part of the same plan to render conservative Christians, Republicans, Trump supporters and merely non-socialists and the borders of the United States permanently obsolete,” Gheen added. “That’s why we’ve been sounding the alarm about the illegal immigrants and non-citizens of many cities, where socialist supremacists already have a high level of control.
“America is really crossing a point of no return right now,” he said. “The numbers are moving into their favor. If they continue to succeed with their influence over Democrats, Republicans and President Trump, then it’s going to be one permanent, unstoppable, socialist nightmare.”
Citizens urged to sue cities that legalize non-citizen voting
Gheen urges citizens to sue the city of College Park and any other city that tries to get away with this.
“It is definitely part of a national trend,” Gheen said. “We’ve seen it in California and almost every deep-blue state.”
Takoma Park became the first city in Maryland to allow the practice after voters narrowly approved the measure in 1991. Hyattsville and Mount Rainier, as well as the neighboring Montgomery County cities of Takoma Park, Barnesville, Garrett Park, Glen Echo, Martin’s Additions and Somerset have all legalized voting by non-citizens.
Left-of-center websites like ThinkProgress and Newsweek hailed the decision as a victory for inclusiveness.
Officials in the District of Columbia have repeatedly considered allowing non-citizens to vote but have decided against it. New York City extended voting privileges to non-citizens in school board elections until 2002. Chicago has more recently allowed non-citizens to vote in school board elections. San Francisco voted last November to allow not only non-citizens but also illegal aliens to vote in school board elections if they have children in public schools.
Ann Corcoran, a Maryland native who blogs on immigration issues at Refugee Resettlement Watch, said conservatives in the state have long been frustrated.
“Well, it’s no surprise in Maryland to see this type of thing, because Maryland has been coddling illegal aliens for decades,” Corcoran said. “Then we elected a Republican governor [Larry Hogan]. We thought he would at least try to rein in some of this stuff, but he doesn’t take any leadership position on it,” Corcoran said.
“He’s not doing anything to discourage this type of behavior. It’s sort of hopeless for us conservatives in Maryland. We elected a Republican governor in a blue state, and it’s the same old thing. So people get discouraged. Gov. Hogan is not supportive of Trump on anything, whether it be the wall or restricting refugees or anything. Many of us were disgusted that we elected a Republican in name only, in the Paul Ryan mold on immigration. He keeps his mouth shut. “
