The Portland City Council voted to delay action on a proposal to allow some non-citizens to vote in local elections after advocates warned that it could backfire on those immigrants by putting them at risk of being targeted by federal immigration agents...

Portland has led two unsuccessful efforts to extend voting rights to non-citizens – at the state level in 2009 and through a referendum in 2010 that was defeated by 1,200 votes, 52-48 percent. But this is the first time that immigration lawyers have raised the concerns about “serious unintended consequences” of such a policy, “including deportation, prison time and ineligibility for naturalization.”

“That never did come up,” said Anna Trevorrow, who was involved in Portland’s 2010 effort to extend voting rights and is current chair of the Portland Board of Public Education. “My sense is that we’re kind of in a state of heightened awareness of immigration issues right now. So these are being thought about in the context of what’s happening nationally with immigration.”...

 

 

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