Obama Encourages Illegal Aliens to Vote-Misleading!
Summary of eRumor:
Citing “sanctity of the vote,” President Obama encouraged illegal aliens to vote in the 2016 presidential election without fear of being deported.
The Truth:
President Obama didn’t intend to encourage illegal aliens to vote, but he appears to do so in a selectively edited video clip making the rounds.
The clip was taken from an interview between President Obama and actress Gina Rodriguez on November 3rd. It gained widespread attention after Neil Cavuto aired this exchange between Obama and Rodriguez during a segment on his FOX News show:
RODRIGUEZ: Many of the millennials, Dreamers, undocumented citizens — and I call them citizens because they contribute to this country — are fearful of voting. So if I vote, will immigration know where I live? Will they come for my family and deport us?
OBAMA: This is not true. And the reason is — first of all, when you vote, you are a citizen yourself, and there is not a situation where the voting rolls somehow are transferred over and people start investigating, et cetera. The sanctity of the vote is strictly confidential in terms of who you voted for.
After airing the clip, Cavuto said, “I can’t believe I just heard what I heard. The president isn’t even questioning whether the person who is an illegal is voting outside of reminding people that if you’re a citizen, you vote.”
But the clip shown by Cavuto doesn’t tell the entire story. In the full interview, the president goes on to clarify that he wasn’t encouraging illegals to vote. Instead, he was talking about legal citizens voting who have undocumented family members:
If you have a family member who maybe is undocumented, then you have an even greater reason to vote. … Part of what is important for Latino citizens is to make your voice heard because you’re not just speaking for yourself, you’re speaking for family members, friends, classmates of yours in school who may not have a voice — who can’t legally vote. But they’re counting on you to make sure you have the courage you make your voice heard.
So, while it’s true that Obama appeared to encourage illegal aliens to vote in the clip making the rounds online, the president clarifies in an unseen follow-up statement that he was talking about how important it is for legal U.S. citizens to vote because their undocumented friends and family members legally can’t.
Given the clip’s selective editing, we’re calling this one “misleading.”