For an issue often described as rare, noncitizen voting is generating a steady stream of federal charges.
The Justice Department is averaging more than a case a day against noncitizens it accuses of illegally casting ballots, as it seeks to provide concrete evidence supporting President Trump’s claims of unlawful noncitizen voting.
On Wednesday alone, prosecutors announced charges against 11 more people. They added another case Thursday.
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Ten of those charged were in Minnesota and indicted on Sept. 24. Nine were accused of voting in the 2024 presidential election, and the other was accused of voting in a 2022 congressional election.
Another case was announced in Florida, where a man was accused of casting an illegal ballot in Citrus County.
Also on Sept. 24, prosecutors announced charges against nine people: four noncitizens in Pennsylvania, two in New Jersey, and one each in Kansas, Texas and Florida.
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Together, the Justice and Homeland Security departments announced nearly 50 cases in September, compared with just 13 brought during the entire four-year Biden administration.
The sharp rise has analysts debating whether noncitizen voting is actually increasing or whether the spike simply reflects a new federal push to identify and prosecute cases.
Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said fraud itself has not surged and, if anything, has declined. What has changed is government enforcement: States are flagging cases more frequently, federal investigators are actively hunting for violations and prosecutors are eager to file charges.
“Finally, officials are doing what they could have been doing for the last 20 years, and that’s taking easily accessible data and prosecuting people for crimes,” said Mr. Adams, who worked in the voting rights section at the Justice Department before leading the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, said the timing of the Justice Department’s wave of cases is suspect. “I worry that things like this could create a chilling effect for voters,” she told The Washington Times.
Ms. Stewart put the numbers in context, noting that the several dozen recent cases represent a fraction of a percent of the 153 million ballots cast in 2024.
“The league has never maintained that noncitizen voting is impossible, or that individual violations do not occur,” she said. “The relevant question is whether or not the available evidence demonstrates it’s a widespread problem and whether the proposed responses are proportionate and protect eligible voters.”
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said the surge in prosecutions should force voting rights groups to reconsider their position.
“These are the cases we’ve been able to develop so far,” he said at a press conference last week, noting that “thousands more” remain under investigation. He added that the dozens of recent charges refute claims by administration critics who insist noncitizen voter fraud never happens.
The rate of noncitizen voting is unknown, and Ms. Stewart declined to hazard a guess.
Mr. Adams said he figures the prevalence is hundreds of times larger than the number of prosecutions.
Still, he said, public scrutiny has likely curbed noncitizen voting, and he estimated that participation dropped in 2024 compared with prior election cycles.
One limitation for the Justice Department is the statute of limitations, which is five years for noncitizen voting cases.
That means only votes in 2022 and 2024 can be charged.
Homeland Security Investigations, a part of the immigration enforcement agency U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is moving to fill that gap.
For cases beyond the five-year statute of limitations, HSI agents can still initiate deportation proceedings by citing unlawful voting as grounds for revocation of legal status.
“HSI has long had authority to pursue removal proceedings where the facts support removability under the Immigration and Nationality Act, including for unlawful voting or false claims to U.S. citizenship,” HSI said in a statement to The Times. “DHS is using available lawful information-sharing and investigative tools to identify cases where immigration enforcement action is appropriate.”
The Homeland Security Department said: “Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences — including criminal charges and deportation.”
Of the 10 new cases charged in Minnesota, three of the accused were Liberian, and one each was from Bosnia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Lithuania and South Africa.
Their legal status was unclear in court documents.
Of the four charged in Pennsylvania, one was a Haitian national, two were Mexican nationals and one was a national of Trinidad and Tobago. Two were legal permanent residents, and two were illegal immigrants.
One of those charged was identified as Cliff Sanon, a Haitian national whose asylum application was denied and who had been ordered deported. The immigration judge said he could not be sent back to Haiti, specifically, because he could be persecuted in his home country.
Mr. Sanon was accused of voting by mail in 2022, but authorities said he registered to vote at least eight times from 2022 to 2026 — including twice on Sept. 20, 2024, alone.
Mr. Sanon checked the box claiming citizenship on six of the applications. Once, he left the checkbox blank, and another time, in May 2024, he checked “No,” but his registration remained active.
When investigators interviewed him, he said he registered to create a “proof of address.”
He said he kept signing up through registration drives. Asked why he kept checking whether he was a citizen when he was not, he said, “They just handed me a clipboard.”
“I knew I was doing something that was not legit,” he told investigators, according to court documents.
In a case announced Thursday by federal prosecutors in Wisconsin, authorities charged a woman from North Macedonia with illegal voting.
Sara Luma registered and voted the same day in the 2024 presidential election, the Justice Department said.
She was arrested by immigration officers this summer as she flew back to the U.S. on a flight from Austria. Prosecutors said she was allowed to depart voluntarily but will face criminal arrest on the warrant for the voting case if she tries to return.
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