San Francisco Put a Noncitizen in Office—This Is Part of the Left’s Plan to Demolish Our Republic

A voter fills out his ballot at a polling station at San Francisco City Hall on June 7, 2022. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Commentary

California is once again leading the way, showing us the dark, dystopian post-U.S. future that awaits us if the left remains in power.

The latest absurdity is that a noncitizen was appointed to office in San Francisco, the first time such a thing has happened in this country.

According to the New York Post, Kelly Wong—reportedly an “immigrant rights” activist from Hong Kong—was “unanimously appointed by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to the city’s Elections Commission on Feb. 14.”

Think about that for a moment. Somebody who isn’t a citizen and isn’t even legally allowed to vote—for now—is now supervising elections in a U.S. city.

This came to pass, according to the New York Post, because San Francisco voters passed a measure in 2020 eliminating the citizenship requirement to sit on San Francisco boards.

Here’s Ms. Wong’s victory speech, posted by Citizen Free Press.

Screenshot/Citizen Free Press/X

She reportedly knows English, but why make any attempt to demonstrate any attachment to U.S. norms and customs when you can get celebrated for flaunting them?

Ms. Wong came to the United States in 2019. Nothing seems to bind her to this country in any way besides the fact that she now holds office.

That raises several questions. If China and the United States went to war, to which country would Ms. Wong be loyal?

This development seems particularly concerning given that Chinese nationals are now the fastest-growing group attempting to illegally cross the U.S. southern border.

Chinese nationals have been caught flying drones over the Pearl Harbor military base. Hundreds of other incidents involving Chinese nationals at U.S. military bases have occurred in recent years, too.

It isn’t a stretch to think that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to harm or disrupt the country, or to steal information from the United States.

Is Ms. Wong a literal Manchurian candidate? Is San Francisco simply becoming a province of China?

When Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited San Francisco in November 2023, the streets were lined with Chinese flags. Perhaps that was a glimpse into the future.

The potential for spies to infiltrate the U.S. system is only one part—perhaps the smaller part—of why allowing noncitizens to vote or to hold office in our country is so problematic.

The modern left is insistent on making the concept of citizenship irrelevant. But this isn’t about China or any other country. It’s about our country essentially abandoning its republican, constitutional system based on the consent of the governed and the rule of law.

To take it a step further in the warped political and moral framework through which the modern left views the world, citizenship may even be a negative. After all, a noncitizen is likely higher on the hierarchy of oppression and more worthy of rights and rewards granted by the state.

It must tickle the hindbrain of a certain kind of Western leftist to think of the “oppressed” peoples of the world not only voting in U.S. elections, but ruling over the United States to make it pay for its “sins.”

There may have been a time when the left feigned some opposition to illegal immigration, but that time has passed.

The Biden administration, aided by an army of relentless and fantastically well-funded open-borders nongovernmental organizations, has done everything in its power to ensure that this country is beset with an endless flow of nearly unimpeded illegal immigrants.

According to a Fox News analysis of U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, 7.3 million illegal immigrants have come into the country since Joe Biden became president in January 2021. If you gathered all these people into one state, it would be the 15th-largest in the union in terms of population.

While this is happening, blue cities and states are in the process of demolishing citizenship requirements for the basic functions and privileges of citizenship. Soon, the only thing left for the citizens of this country will be their obligation to pay taxes to support all the newcomers.

Already, cities are reallocating their budgets to cover the enormous costs created by all the illegal immigrants.

What we are left with, when all is said and done, is a country that’s hardly a country at all.

I’ve had difficulty coming up with a name for this sort of political system, but it certainly isn’t a republic, nor is it really a “democracy.”

In the old days, when federalism was stronger, people used to say the United States “are” this or that. More recently, as the country became more centralized and nationalized, people would say the United States “is” this or that. That distinction is now sliding away, too.

If the left’s anti-U.S. project continues, people will have to say the United States “was” a country, but is now an economic zone—worthy of neither respect nor devotion—in which they happen to live. It will be a wealthy, but decaying remnant of what was once the mightiest and freest nation on earth, a carcass to be devoured by warring ethnic tribes and hostile foreign powers.

California is giving us an early preview of this future. The rest of the country now must decide whether this is the kind of “progress” we want for ourselves and our posterity or whether we hold on to our once enormously successful system of ordered liberty.

Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.