GERRYMANDERING: Rudy Giuliani boasts about a ‘trick’ used to stop Hispanic voters

GERRYMANDERING: Rudy Giuliani boasts about a 'trick' used to stop Hispanic voters

Rudy Giuliani calls it a “dirty trick,” but insists that it’s not illegal, as he describes one of the methods he’s been using in the past to suppress the Hispanic vote.

It may sound familiar to Hispanic Americans casting their votes today: the (false) threat of deportation.

On his podcast with guest Steve Bannon and Kari Lake, Giuliani laid out the very simple plot, saying that “we” — he doesn’t identify exactly who this is — handed out cards warning Hispanic voters to show up at the polls with their identity documents because immigration control agents would be picking people up.

He and Lake agree that this method only scares away noncitizens who are undocumented and do not have the legal right to vote in U.S. elections, and that by doing so, he’s actually protecting the voting rights of Hispanic citizens.

It’s an argument that falls apart when one recognizes that ICE has been accused of wrongly deporting individuals who are, in fact, U.S. citizens, and that Hispanic people could have legitimate reason to fear, even if they are not in the country illegally.

Giuliani says that after the election, he got a call from his attorney letting him know that he was being investigated by Attorney General Janet Reno, and describes mocking the investigation, telling his lawyer that the people he targeted “don’t have civil rights.”

He’s wrong about this too — while noncitizens don’t have voting rights, they do have certain protected civil rights, including the right not to face discrimination based on race or national origin.

Giuliani isn’t clear about the year that this took place, but based on when Reno was in office, it would have been an election between 1993 and 2001, during which time two presidential elections took place: Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000.

Giuliani also ran for mayor of New York City (and won) twice in this time period: 1993 and 1997, so it’s possible he’s not talking about a presidential election but his own.

It’s not the only allegation of racial profiling — as handing out cards to Hispanic individuals or threatening that ICE would be checking Hispanic voters for documentation would be — during Giuliani’s time as Mayor, by a long shot.

Giuliani defended NYC police in 2000, when there were Federal findings of racial profiling in “stop and frisk” tactics.

He argued that police actually just arrest people identified by crime victims, and insisted those are usually minorities, according to a New York Times report at the time.

As for threats of deportation being a deterrent only to those who aren’t in the country legally, a report in 2021 from Immigration Impact showed that over the previous five years, ICE had arrested hundreds of U.S. citizens, and deported as many as 70 individuals who may have been legal citizens.

Statistics of this type of abuse do not seem to be available from the 1990s, but it makes crystal clear the reason that a campaign like Giuliani describes could scare citizens away from the polls.

This “dirty trick” falls right in line with other voter suppression methods over the years targeting ethnic minorities and groups who statistically are more likely to support Democratic candidates.

Rudy even complains that if he used similar tactics today, he’d be more likely to be prosecuted!

Watch him not only admit to, but brag about, his voter suppression efforts below.

Stephanie Bazzle

Steph Bazzle is a news writer who covers politics and theocracy, always aiming for a world free from extremism and authoritarianism. Follow Steph on Twitter @imjustasteph. Sign up for all of her stories to be delivered to your inbox here: