Leaders of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) on Thursday condemned the recent House passage of H.R. 22, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act—describing the legislation as a direct attack on voting rights.
Rep. Grace Meng
Rep. Grace Meng, CAPAC Chair, and Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, who leads the caucus’s Civil Rights and Voting Rights Task Force, issued a joint statement criticizing the measure, which they say would impose new and burdensome requirements on voters.
“The so-called SAVE Act is nothing more than a shameful attempt to silence the voices of millions of Americans,” the lawmakers said.
The bill, which passed the House with Republican support, would require documentary proof of citizenship—beyond commonly accepted forms of ID such as a driver’s license or military ID—in order to register to vote. It would also eliminate existing registration methods including mail and online options.
Critics argue the bill could disenfranchise broad swaths of the electorate. Meng and Scott said the legislation would effectively bar deployed military service members from registering to vote unless they returned to the United States and would prevent married women who have changed their surnames from using their birth certificates as proof of citizenship.
The caucus also warned that the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community would be particularly affected. A majority of Asian American eligible voters are naturalized citizens, many of whom may not have immediate access to the required paperwork, they said.
Additionally, Meng and Scott pointed to recent actions by former President Donald Trump, including efforts to limit multilingual access for voters with limited English proficiency and an executive order aimed at preventing the use of birth certificates for voter registration. They called these efforts “extreme measures” that would further suppress AANHPI participation in elections.
“To be clear, it is already illegal under federal law for noncitizens to cast a ballot,” the statement said. “This legislation is not about safeguarding elections; it is a blatant assault on the constitutional rights of millions of Americans.”