JEFFERSON CITY 鈥 The Republican-led Missouri House approved a plan Wednesday requiring state driver鈥檚 licenses to include a mark designating citizenship status beginning in mid-2025.
As part of an election-year effort by Republicans to make immigration a key issue for voters, the measure is aimed at concerns that an influx of immigrants would lead to noncitizens voting in Missouri elections.
The practice is already prohibited at the federal level. Federal law also requires states to update their voter rolls and remove anyone ineligible, a process that identifies immigrants living in the country illegally.
鈥淲e鈥檙e just giving election authorities a tool to ensure only citizens vote in our elections,鈥 said the bill鈥檚 sponsor, Rep. Dan Stacy, R-Blue Springs.
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The legislation was approved on a 108-46 vote. It now moves to the Senate for further debate.
Democrats condemned the proposal.
Rep. Ingrid Burnett, D-Kansas City, said she was ashamed of her colleagues for targeting 鈥減eople who don鈥檛 look like us.鈥
鈥淚 don鈥檛 understand this appetite and hunger for picking on immigrants. We have a workforce shortage, and we are driving people away who could be helping us to address that,鈥 Burnett said.
Rep. Bridget Walsh Moore, a south 狐狸视频 County Democrat, said the proposal was flawed because immigrants have helped boost the regional economy.
She condemned Republicans for fostering an anti-immigration sentiment heading into the 2024 election.
鈥淪outh County is thriving because in the 鈥90s we brought over thousands of Bosnian immigrants,鈥 Walsh Moore said.
Republicans insisted the new identifying mark is needed amid claims by former President Donald Trump that Democrats are encouraging migrants to flow into the country illegally in order to register them to vote in the 2024 election.
Rep. Richard West, a St. Charles County Republican, said the legislation could prompt immigrants to move faster to go through the naturalization process.
鈥淲e need to keep that going,鈥 West said.
Rep. Hardy Billington, a Butler County Republican, was among those claiming an immigrant-led crime wave is underway.
鈥淪o many people are coming here and committing crime,鈥 Billington said.
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican who is running for governor, last March elected to pull Missouri out of the Electronic Information Registration Information Center, commonly called ERIC, which is designed to improve the accuracy of voting roles.
As a result of the move, Ashcroft鈥檚 office was the subject of a scathing report issued in January by Republican state Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick. The report said the decision to leave ERIC will cause local election authorities to have less information to identify and correct inaccurate voter records because the office did not have a plan to replace the benefits received from membership in the coalition.
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Alyse Pfeil of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.