Esternita Watkins, 42, became an American citizen nearly two years ago with a big smile, wearing a green dress at a naturalization ceremony in Montgomery, Alabama.
She had lived in the US since 2015, when she arrived on a fiance visa to marry Christopher Watkins, 54, her now-husband, whom she met on Facebook. He registered to vote shortly after becoming a citizen and was looking forward to casting his first ballot in this year’s presidential election. But he received a letter this month from Secretary of State Wes Allen flagging him for cheating non-citizen identification number and canceled voter registration.
In order to prove his citizenship and vote in November, the letter says he must fill out a voter registration form again.
“I was mad because I worked so hard to become a U.S. citizen so I could vote,” Watkins said, adding that the naturalization process was expensive.
He was concerned about the letter — he felt something political was going on, he said — and said he wasn’t sure he wanted to sign up again.
Republican officials across the country like Allen have a new focus on preventing noncitizens from voting. is already illegal and rare Voting rights advocates and attorneys say naturalized Americans like Esternita Watkins would be most affected by such voter roll purges.
“Maybe the first time an election official tries to do it, you can tell they haven’t really thought it through,” said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the Campaign Legal Center, a voting rights group in Washington. DC “But they continue to do the same thing, even though they know every time what happens is that thousands and thousands of naturalized citizens are targeted and accused of fraudulent voting, felonies, and their citizenship status is in question.”
Allen announced in mid-August that he was setting out to cancel 3,251 voter registrations as part of a new process that lists anyone on state voter rolls with a non-citizen identification number. Allen shared the list with the attorney general for “further investigation and possible criminal prosecution.” his office said in a statement.
“Every citizen in the state of Alabama has an immigration number, everybody has one,” Lang said.
According to the most recent data available from the Department of Homeland Security, 3,998 people naturalized in Alabama in 2022. A year ago, Alabama had 1,614 US citizens.
Allen is among Republican officials trying to crack down on noncitizen voting in the run-up to the presidential election. Officials in Texas, Virginia and Ohio recently said they were removing noncitizens from voter rolls, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., championed legislation requiring documentary proof of citizenship.
Former President Donald Trump and his allies have falsely claimed that noncitizen voting is widespread and that Democrats want to allow them to vote in November.
Voting rights advocates and experts say there is little evidence that noncitizens are registering or voting in large numbers.
In a news release announcing the process, Allen acknowledged that some naturalized citizens could still be searched, but said they could fill out a form and re-register to vote.
Watkins already proved her citizenship two years ago when she registered to vote by showing her certificate of citizenship, her husband said, adding that another form was a “burden.”
Christopher Watkins said the whole process amounted to voter suppression.
Attempts to find out why his wife was on the list have been unsuccessful, he said. Local officials urged her to call their office, where they told her Allen had been cited for a traffic violation. But Esternita Watkins doesn’t drive, she said.
“I was on fire,” Christopher Watkins said. “This Wes Allen, what gives him the right to think he’s not a citizen?”
A letter Esternita Watkins received from the county said she must register to vote two weeks before the election, but when pressed by NBC News, Allen said eligible voters can update their registrations on Election Day.
“This update can be done by filling the form or online. This step can be done even at the polling station on election day,” he said in a statement.
The letter Esternita Watkins received from the county, shared with NBC News, did not mention that option.
A coalition of 11 voting and immigrant rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters, the Campaign Legal Center and the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice, alleges that Allen’s process violates federal voting law.
The groups argued that the new process violated the National Voter Registration Act for a variety of reasons, including removing voters from the rolls too close to polling day and discriminating against naturalized citizens. They demanded Alabama halt the process and requested a series of documents related to the development and use of the program.
Lang of the Campaign Legal Center said Allen has yet to respond to their letter. Allen told NBC News that he “will not bow to threats from ultra-liberal activist groups who will stop at nothing to see non-citizens remain on Alabama’s voter rolls.”
In his statement, Allen said he sought better information from the federal government but was denied.
“Repeated requests to the United States Federal Government for a list of non-citizens currently living in Alabama have been denied,” he said. “This lack of cooperation made my team and I approach the issue differently.”