More than a dozen arrested with ties to illegal voting and other election related crimes
WASHINGTON (TNND) — The Trump administration is keeping the spotlight on what it sees as illegal voting in U.S. elections. While the cases are not widespread, top White House officials say they demonstrate that there are people in this country who attempt to vote illegally
Among the 16 people recently arrested for illegal voting or other election-related crimes, nine were from the state of Texas.
Mexican national Monica Carzoli, 46, a lawful permanent resident, admitted to registering to vote and then voting in the November 2024 election. Carzoli was arrested on criminal charges this week in Del Rio, Texas.
During a September 15 news conference, Ryan Raybould, a U.S. Attorney with the Northern District of Texas, said, "Anyone who is not a citizen and chooses to cast a ballot or claimed citizenship falsely is breaking the law. We cannot and will not allow that to stand."
Nigerian national, Gladys Okafor, 56, a lawful permanent resident, has been arrested and charged with illegally voting in the 2022 elections and allegedly voting in the 2024 general election.
In Wisconsin, Colombian national Julieta Englestad, 53, a lawful permanent resident, is facing charges for falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen when registering to vote in the November 2022 federal election.
All lawful permanent residents but no actual U.S. citizens' arrests are part of a broader crackdown by the Trump administration, largely using voter lists compiled by states.
In an interview with Fox News Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said,
We're going through and scrubbing them, we're comparing them with those in the country illegally, those that are legal permanent residents, those that are citizens and we can't find them on our list, then we start figuring out who you are and why'd you vote and were you legally able to vote.
Mullin said there are mounting cases of voter fraud.
“We have 1620 cases moving right now that are under investigation. We have 151 arrests, and we have 300,000 we're looking into, and that list grows every single day."
Democrats, meanwhile, are accusing the president and Republicans who control Congress of using the matter to distract from issues Americans care about most, like the war in Iran and prices at the pump and the grocery store.
During a September 15 hearing, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said, "It seems like we continue to have hearings that are offering solutions in search of a problem."
During that hearing, a legal fellow from the Libertarian Cato Institute who researches the matter confirmed the rare nature of illegal voting.
"No thorough professional audit has found that non-citizens constitute anything even close to a tenth of a percent of the state's voter population. Recent federal law enforcement efforts affirm the comparatively microscopic nature of non-citizen voting," he said.
When asked why he thought it was being brought up so frequently by top Trump officials, he said
I think because it's politically expedient, because it stokes fears and it grabs attention, but I think we can have public policy conversations about the topic, but we need to be honest about the facts on the ground.