In case you missed it: Guardian reports Mississippi nonprofit stoking fears that undocumented immigrants will vote in 2024 elections

A recent report in the U.S. edition of the British newspaper The Guardian notes that Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who helped Donald Trump attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, “has joined forces with far-right anti-immigrant groups to pour resources into stoking unfounded fears of non-US citizens voting in federal elections.”

Among Mitchell’s reported allies is the group Immigration Accountability Project, which was incorporated as a Mississippi nonprofit in 2023, according to the article.

Because non-citizens are already prohibited from voting in federal elections and could face felony charges and deportation for doing so, such voting attempts are rare. That has not stopped groups such as Immigration Accountability Project and the Only Citizens Vote Coalition from elevating the issue, The Guardian reported. According to the newspaper, Only Citizens Vote claimed that “millions of illegal aliens and noncitizens may be able to vote in November.” The groups’ campaign pairs two conservative hot-button issues: immigration and alleged voter fraud.

Chris Chmielenski, president of Mississippi’s Immigration Accountability Project, “acknowledged in an interview that there is little evidence to suggest non-citizens vote with any regularity in US elections – but maintained that the possibility was enough to warrant concern,” The Guardian reported. Chmielenski claimed more than half of “this large group of foreign-born individuals that are living in the country” are not citizens and are “gaining access to voter-registration forms.”

According to the group’s website, Immigration Accountability Project’s aim is to inform “the American public about the actions, votes, and statements of their elected representatives on immigration issues.” That has included leaking congressional emails related to immigration bills.

The group is at least partly funded by the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing think tank and political dealmaker that awarded the Mississippi nonprofit a $100,000 grant in May 2024, according to the article.

The Heritage Foundation is behind the controversial Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project, a 1,000-page treatise which calls for radically altering the federal government in ways that opponents say provides a precursor guide to an authoritarian regime. Project 2025 was drafted by Trump allies, though the former president and 2024 candidate has since sought to distance himself from some of its more incendiary or bizarre components. Opponents say Project 2025’s agenda includes mass detention camps and what Trump has predicted would be the largest deportation in U.S. history.

The Guardian reported that the Immigration Accountability Project “has garnered powerful allies in the Republican party” and that when U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), as House speaker, unveiled federal legislation to require proof of citizenship to register to vote, the director of government relations at the organization, Rosemary Jenks, joined him and other Trump allies on the Capitol steps. The article quoted Jenks saying, “I wanna just do a little public service announcement here and say if you are not a citizen of the United States of America, you are ineligible to vote.”

Among the other details cited in The Guardian report:

• Immigration Accountability Project’s organizational history “underscores the ascent of the anti-immigration movement into the conservative mainstream.” Before forming the nonprofit, Jenks and Chmielenski worked as senior staff of the anti-immigration group NumbersUSA for more than a decade.

• According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, D.C.-based NumbersUSA was founded by the late white-nationalist activist John Tanton.

• As recently as 2019, Jenks appeared on a podcast “hosted by the anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney.”

• Chmielenski maintained the nonprofit is “not a voter-suppression effort, or anything like that. And if individuals want to vote, I think they’ll find the elements necessary in order to demonstrate their US citizenship.”

• Immigration Accountability Project’s board members include John Zadrozny, an attorney who served in the U.S. State Department under Trump and has worked for the anti-immigration group Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Trump-allied America First Legal. Zadrozny is credited with helping draft the Project 2025 vision for a conservative-restructured state department.

• The founder of the group Global Project Against Hate and Extremism claimed, “All these groups that we’re talking about are in some way connected to Project 2025.”

Though not mentioned in The Guardian article, the staff listed on the Immigration Accountability Project website also includes Grant Newman as director of government relations. Newman was likewise affiliated with NumbersUSA, according to the website, which lists the following other board members:

• Former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat of Virginia (chair), a vice provost at Liberty University.

• Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, who ran unsuccessfully for president and for governor of Colorado, cosponsored a mass immigration reduction act and urged America to reject “the siren song of multiculturalism.” He also proposed that the United States should respond to a theoretical future Islamic terrorist attack by bombing Mecca and other holy sites.

• Ed Corrigan, who has worked on Capitol Hill staffs under conservative senators Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions and Jesse Helms, and for the Heritage Foundation as a group vice president for policy promotion. He is currently president/CEO of the rightwing Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), which is focused on immigration and whose staff includes Cleta Mitchell, DeMint, Mark Meadows and Wesley Denton (CPI is the subject of a lengthy expose in the July 15, 2024, issue of The New Yorker).

• Wesley Denton, now COO of CPI, who took a leave of absence from the organization in 2019 to work in the Trump administration at the Office of Management & Budget, and previously worked for DeMint and at the Heritage Foundation as senior policy advisor.

Aside from Chmeilenski, none of the staff or board members have an obvious connection with Mississippi, based on a review of relevant details beyond those reported in The Guardian article.

The Mississippi Secretary of State website shows that Immigration Accountability Project was incorporated as a nonprofit in October 2023 with no known office address, though Chmielenski (listed as its incorporator and the only reported officer) gave an address of 11965 Ol’ Oaks Drive in Gulfport, Miss. (the articles of incorporation are here).

Harrison County, Mississippi land records show that Christopher and Kerry Chmielenski bought the Gulfport property in August 2021. A post on Kerry Chmielenski’s Facebook page could explain why the Gulfport residence is the organization’s only reported address.

The nonprofit’s LinkedIn page is unclear about its official location; it lists 12 employees, including three located in “United States,” six in the D.C.-Baltimore area and three in Mississippi. Jenks’ LinkedIn page lists her as based in D.C. Newman’s page lists him in D.C. as well.

The Guardian article did not address why Immigration Accountability Project, with its extensive Beltway network and focus, was incorporated in Mississippi, nor did it include further details about the group’s activities or about the people involved.

The Mississippi Independent will reach out to the organization and provide further details in an upcoming article.

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Image: Cleta Mitchell on the Capitol steps, via The Guardian; screencap of Facebook post