The State of Maine welfare office in Portland attempted to help a Venezuelan illegal alien vote on Sept. 23, according to the non-citizen’s Spanish-language interpreter, who works with immigrants in Maine seeking welfare benefits.
“She was applying for MaineCare and Food Stamps, and they asked her if she wanted to register to vote,” said the interpreter, Doris Rodriguez, a 72-year-old resident of the greater Portland area.
Rodriguez, who intervened to prevent her client from potentially committing a deportable offense, said a Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) employee told her that welfare clerks had been instructed to offer voter registration documents to any non-citizen applying for benefits.
“I said, ‘What do you mean? She can’t vote. She’s here illegally,'” Rodriguez recalled.
Rodriguez declined to identify her client or the welfare clerk. She said this was the first time she had seen a welfare clerk attempt to provide a non-citizen with voter registration documents despite clearly understanding that the client was ineligible to vote.
“I said, ‘Why would you ask her that?’ I mean, if she votes, she goes to prison. It’s a federal offense,” said Rodriguez.
Only U.S. citizens and naturalized U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in national, state, and local elections in Maine.
Non-citizens who nonetheless register to vote risk prosecution, deportation, and possible adverse judgement against any claim for asylum or refugee status.
Rodriguez has served Spanish-speaking clients in the Portland area for more than a year. She said the welfare clerk informed her she had been instructed to offer the voter registration forms by someone higher ranking than her at the welfare agency.
“[S]he kind of looked down at the paper and she said, ‘Well, that’s what I was told to do, to ask,’ you know,” said Rodriguez.
“She said that she was told by the head of by DHHS to ask the clients that are requesting benefits if they want to register to vote, even if they’re not legal citizens,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez recalled that the DHHS clerk’s attempt to register the Venezuelan illegal alien to vote occurred on Sept. 23 around 2pm at the Portland DHHS office.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and Deputy Secretary of State Emily Cook did not respond to an Oct. 3 email asking whether they were aware that the Portland welfare office was potentially helping non-citizens to illegally register to vote.
Lindsay Hammes, the spokesperson for Maine DHHS, also declined to comment for this story.
The Maine Wire was unable to identify who may have issued the directive to welfare clerks that non-citizens should be offered voter registration forms.
According to Rodriguez, her client entered the U.S. illegally over the southern border in Dec. 2023 along with her two sons.
The client had lived in the interior of the country without authorization until last month, when Rodriguez helped her file an I-589 claim for asylum. The pair were at the Portland welfare office because an I-589, stamped and returned from the federal government, made the woman eligible for certain welfare benefits.
Asylum seekers are generally not eligible for federal benefits like Food Stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP) and Medicaid, a medical welfare program for poor and indigent Americans.
However, Maine has its own policies that allow some classes of non-citizens to receive various levels of taxpayer-funded benefits, either through municipalities or through the state. Some non-citizens, depending on their status and country of origin, may obtain federal benefits through the Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) program.
The client’s asylum claim will now be heard by an Immigration Court judge, though that process could take several years as the asylum system currently has a massive backlog of cases due to the record number of illegal aliens entering the U.S. and filing asylum claims.
While the asylum claim is pending in the immigration court system, the Venezuelan national will be paroled within the U.S., and, after a six-month waiting period, she will receive work authorization and the equivalent of a Social Security Number, which will allow her to work legally in the U.S.
If her asylum claim is ultimately rejected, she will be expected to self-deport to Venezuela.
Under the Biden-Harris Administration, illegal immigration at the southern border has reached all-time-highs for several consecutive years, according to Department of Homeland Security data.
In FY 2023, DHS reported a record 3.2 million illegal aliens encountered attempting to cross into the U.S. without authorization, a figure that does not include so-called “got aways” who were never processed or detained while entering the country.
The number of Venezuelan nationals crossing the southern border saw a massive surge at the end of 2023, around the time when Rodriguez’s client entered the U.S.
In 2021, DHS reported encountering 50,499 Venezuelan nationals attempting to illegally enter the U.S. However, that number was 334,914 for FY 2023.
So far in FY 2024, DHS has reported 297,551 encounters involving Venezuelan nationals.
According to the data, the largest category of illegal aliens is single adults, as opposed to family units or unaccompanied minors.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="31423 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=31423">18 Comments
You know that tens of thousands of these illegals have been granted the save invitation to register all across the country . Show me a sanctuary city and I’ll show you illegals voting . The Harris – Biden regime let MILLIONS of un vetted , un educated , un vaccinated ILLEGAL ALIENS into YOUR country for this very purpose . Save Democracy ? Hell YES ! Vote these democrats out of office . ALL OF THEM ,
Will anything happen?
November 5th. MAGA!
Maine deserves a sworn affidavit form Bellows swearing that the Maine constitution was upheld during the election
Otherwise, there should be no certification
Of course as Maine is running ads saying we run fair and honest elections…..
Can you say insurrection
The evil Biden unleashed when he opened the border will reverberate across America for years to come.
Can we please just start the insurrection now?
I’m tired of waiting.
FIRST – there should be NO benefits for illegal immigrants! Second – Arrest the individual that was pushing the illegal to break the law! Third – Get rid of as many dems in government as possible– IF a person wants to come to the USA, THEN that person needs to have an individual sponsor (NOT the US Government) that will pay their way until they become a citizen in 5 to 7 years!
I can’t even speak, what the democrats have done to this state/country is criminal. I can just imagine the look on the legal liberals faces when they finally figure out that they’re being replaced too.
I bet the illegal gets more than $23.00 in food stamps that’s what I get as an Maine American citizen . something in maine is wrong when a illegal gets more than american. $23.00 for food is not enough
I am so glad that Collins, King, Pingree and Golden are speaking out against this, lol. Just how much do the politicians hate us and America, inquiring minds want to know.
You only need to indict a few people for the message to get out there and deter the thousands getting away with this every day.
Just got off I-295 driving through Portlandistan. Nothing warms my heart more than a Muslim woman driving a brand new white Mercedes.
Criminals commit crimes and there are zero repercussions. Gee…..I wonder why they keep doing it?
Draft whit girls for the front lines wherever the jews are slaughtering women and children.
A comprehensive audit of Georgia’s voter rolls found that 20 noncitizens registered to vote on a registration list of over 8,000,00, as announced Wednesday by Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger. Those 20 people were referred to potential prosecution. Georgia’s SoS ordered the noncitizen to prove how rare it is for someone to get on the roll. The 20 noncitizens were spread over seven different countries.
The SoS office also forcefully pushed back on anyone claiming that voting machines generate fraud in the election, saying there is “zero evidence of a machine flipping an individual’s vote.” He directly called out anyone suggesting otherwise, saying, “There is literally zero — and I’m saying this to certain congresspeople in the state — zero evidence of machines flipping votes. And that claim was a lie to 2020 election and it’s a lie now.”
This was done to refute the lies being spread by Trump and Republicans about voter fraud. Then recall how well pushing those lies workrd for FOX. It cost FOX $787,500,000 plus their lawyer’s fees. Then how well did it work for Rudi – lost his license to practice law ordered to pay $148,000,000 to Ruby and Shaye plus he’s filed for bankruptcy
I”m with Beachmom, Will anything happen? Somehow, I doubt it unless an overwhelming majority of us start yelling. And true to form, the majority of Maine residents remain silent instead of LOUD when it comes to BS like this. Remember that old saying, “the squeaky wheels gets the grease”. Why does anyone need to ask why theres so much corruption here in our state? Because the majority remains SILENT. Corrupt people love complecet people.