Tag Archives: save-act

A Very Brief Reflection on Non-Citizen Impact on Governance in the United States

Posted on by
Reply

On August 13 of this year (2026), Sue Seboda published an article on Substack entitled “Will the SAVE Act Save America or is it just more spitballs and sledgehammers…”.  It follows a multipart series of articles Sue has written and published on Substack dealing with the history of immigration and immigration legislation in the United States, a decent fairly objective effort worth reading, as is her latest article which can be accessed at https://sueseboda.substack.com/p/will-the-save-act-save-america?r=lwzkv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web.  Sue strikes me as being on the conservative side of the political spectrum but objective and open minded.  I like her work.  I, on the other hand, am and have long been a democratic socialist along the lines of Noam Chomsky, Nelson Mandela, Pepe Mujica, Martin Luther King, Jr., etc. (not to be confused with Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin or even Leon Trotsky).

Sue’s article deals with very significant issues, issues that also impact other critical issues not dealt with in the article such as the nature of the federal decennial census used to apportion Congressional representation and distribute federal funds and the issue of birthright citizenship, all of which should probably be dealt with concurrently via a federal constitutional clarifying amendment after robust debate that results in legal requirements that deal with real problems in a manner avoiding discrimination based on race, gender, religious beliefs or  national origins but definitely limits the roles of non-citizens in United States institutions.  The article focuses on the pros and cons of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), a proposed Congressional bill that would requires individuals to provide documentary proof of United States citizenship (such as a passport or certified birth certificate) when registering to vote in federal elections.

If formal participation in the political process by undocumented migrants is an important issue, an even more critical issue has been ignored and is generally ignored, the role of foreign governments and their agents, advocates and representative in the United States electoral and political system and the role of campaign contributions from sources ineligible to vote in the elections impacted, including political action committees, corporations, labor unions, chambers of commerce and individuals.  That is a real clear and present danger.  The two great villains in the foregoing, albeit not the only ones, are the Israeli American Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the United States Supreme Court, especially in its Citizens United decision, Citizens United v. FEC; 558 U.S. 310 (2010) and its June 30, 2026 decision in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, 609 U.S. ____ (2026).  Of course, the legacy media focuses primarily on imaginary roles by Russia and China, ignoring the reality of United States interference in foreign elections, most recently, along with Israel, throughout Latin America.

For the most part (in the author’s opinion), the least rational political posture with respect to securing the electoral process has been that adopted by the Democratic Party and its activist base which vehemently oppose action to require picture identification and proof of citizenship to vote.  That specifically includes vehement opposition to the SAVE Act which includes concepts that enjoy overwhelming support among the citizenry, opposition to which is likely to cost the Democratic Party a significant number of votes among the independent voter community in upcoming Congressional elections.  The SAVE Act is far from perfect and could certainly use a bit of constitutional and pragmatic polish though its premises seem sound.  However, a rising swell of Republicans, apparently political descendants of the nineteenth century “American Party”[1], are seeking clearly inappropriate actions designed to minimize the rights and even citizenship status of United States citizens, especially naturalized citizens and Islamic Americans, or indeed any United States citizens opposed to Zionist and Israeli control over United States officials, both elected and appointed.  Republican advocates have gone as far as to demand that certain United States citizens be stripped of their citizenship and expelled from the United States for opposing policies such as undeclared wars and support for genocide and ethnic cleansing, or that they at least be imprisoned and deprived of their political rights.  The foregoing is even more ludicrous than Democratic Party and Democratic Party activist opposition to limiting the right to vote and receipt of federal benefits, as a right, to United States citizens.

The reality is that the positions of both the Democratic and Republican parties are based on few moral, ethical, legal or constitutional factors but rather, only on how they benefit their ability to dominate government at all levels: federal, state and local.  That is something that should disgust all decent citizens regardless of their favored political ideologies but, unfortunately, the communications and entertainment industries in the United States, rather than educate and enlighten, manipulate, obfuscate, confuse and deceive, making functional democracy at best highly improbable, inefficient and dysfunctional, i.e., the ludicrous system we have today led by the ludicrous national leaders proffered by both major political parties for the past half century: i.e., William Jefferson Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack H. Obama, Joseph Robinette Biden and Donald J. Trump (with their supporting casts in Congress, the Judiciary and the Bureaucracy, led by their noses by the Military Industrial Complex against which President Dwight David Eisenhower warned as he left office).

It may be that at some level things are changing, ironically, based on dissidents within the Republican Party (such as Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Green, Thomas Massie, Joe Kent and Candace Owens) seeking a real “Make America First” alternative, and on an evolving democratic socialist wing in the Democratic Party led by recently elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.  I confess to admiring them all, though I’m not always in full agreement with them.  If they could somehow unite and develop a platform based on issues with which they agree, and there are many, many of the worst problems engrained for over a century in United States politics might be minimized.  However, that is a posture their respective followers appear to consider anathema and thus, such a scenario is only a bit more probable than Hell freezing over or the United States electorate finally coming to grips with the Declaration of Independence they claim to revere.

Good article Sue!!!
_____

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] Better known as the “Know Nothing Party”.

A Pragmatic Very Brief Reflection on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act

Posted on by
Reply

An article published recently by Sue Seboda entitled “The Clash over Immigration: Part 1

What History Can Teach Us” and available at https://sueseboda.substack.com/p/the-clash-over-immigration-part-1?r=87oth offers relevant objective historical insights essential in order to contextualize the arguments for and against the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (“SAVE”) Act, arguments equally ignorant and emotional on both sides rather than cogent and carefully considered.  I recommend that all prospective voters read Sue’s article, or another one equally objective and complete.

My personal position[1], based on pragmatic as well as constitutional grounds, is that the issues dealt with in the Act, as well as related issues such as “birthright citizenship”, are best dealt with through a comprehensive constitutional amendment rather than through legislation and especially, rather than through a presidential decree.  Indeed, I’ve noted that in light of the federal nature of the United States, as a pragmatic issue, an easily accessible national registry of citizens, including a regularly updated nationalized identification system (such as exist in most of the world) might well prove essential given the transient nature of most residencies and the fact that federal elections are conducted at the county level (subdivided into electoral districts and polling stations)[2].

On pragmatic grounds that supporters of the Act should recognize but many don’t, preferring to react on a “no-matter-what support for the Act” basis, legislation and presidential decrees are easily reversible once the opposition attains power, something that, absent the advent of a long-term dictatorship, is probable.  Thus, today’s triumphs could easily turn into defeats in the same manner that executive actions by presidents Obama and Biden circumventing legislations were promptly overturned by Mr. Trump.  A well thought out, argued and evaluated constitutional solution would provide long term stability and clarity. 

I personally support liberal immigration policies, strictly enforced.  I do so for several reasons, moral as well as practical.  Morally, the United States, despite always having been intensely xenophobic, was purportedly founded as a haven for foreigners as exemplified in Emma Lazarus’s sonnet, the “New Colossus” and, if the country is to remain true to its purported ideals, continued immigration is an essential pillar.  But ignoring the foregoing, the reality is that current and anticipated demographics demonstrate a decreasing birthrate and a concurrent increase in the aging population which means that without an influx of new taxpayers and contributors to social security, the social security system and indeed, the treasury, will soon lack the necessary financing to fund essential government programs.  That is a reality, unpleasant but unavoidable.  Consequently, not only the United States but Western Europe desperately require not only their current immigrants, legal as well as undocumented, but additional immigrants as well.  The real obstacle to the foregoing however involves racial, ethnic and religious bigotry with current citizens unwilling to see demographic changes that ironically duplicate those occasioned when their own ancestors immigrated and changed preexisting demographic realities.  Ask any Native American.  That bigoted reality existed during the colonial period when English colonists despised German newcomers, and then when they both despised Italian immigrants, and then the Hispanics, and especially for some reason, Asiatics[3].

So, I suggest you read at least the initial part of the cogent article by Sue Seboda referenced above and then, considering the issues I’ve raised in this brief reflection, think clearly rather than emotionally, avoiding reaction merely based on your political loyalties (they should reflect your opinions rather than forming them) and, based on facts rather than emotions, arrive at a wise and workable political posture that you will hopefully share with others.  Hopefully many others.  Whichever side of the issue you find most palatable.

_____

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] I should disclose that I arrived as an immigrant to the United States, joining my mother and new step father (a native born US citizen whose parents had immigrated to the United States from Greece), on or about October 12, 1952, albeit as a legal, fully documented immigrant, and that I am currently a dual United States-Colombian citizen.  Much easier way back then.

[2] I note that in the past I have been a member of the United States Libertarian Party, indeed, I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Libertarian Party of Florida, and that such political party vehemently opposes a national identification system, as has, in the past, the Republican Party.  For many decades now, however, I’ve been a registered “independent”.

[3] The Civil War era American Party (better known as the Know Nothings) was illustrative of the foregoing, see generally Calvo Mahé (2026): “On the Organic Ancestry of MAGA and of Its Ironic Incoherence”, published on various platforms including the Medium, Substack and on my personal blog on February 10, 2026), available at https://guillermocalvo.com/2026/02/10/on-the-organic-ancestry-of-maga-and-of-its-ironic-incoherence/.