Law enforcement officials in Texas announced on Sep. 15 that seven noncitizens, indicted for voter fraud related to the 2024 election, had been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation.
Six of those charged are lawful permanent residents from countries ranging from Nigeria to India.
A seventh suspect is a Mexican national—and convicted felon—who was previously deported.
Noncitizens, including permanent legal residents, are not allowed to vote in state and federal elections.
All seven suspects allegedly lied on voter registration forms and voted in previous elections, although two only cast provisional ballots that were subsequently rejected, U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said.
Arrest warrants have been issued for two other, unnamed suspects.
The suspects are all facing years in prison, Raybould said. Lying on a form to vote illegally carries up to a two-year sentence, and voting illegally is up to one year.
“These charges send a clear message: We will enforce the law,” Raybould said during a press conference in Fort Worth.
“We will hold offenders accountable. And we will safeguard the voting process for the citizens it is meant to serve.”
The arrests are part of a multi-agency investigation involving Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, the FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations.
“Foreign influence has no place in American elections,” Paxton said when launching the investigation in June.
“I will not tolerate attempts to rig elections and silence the will of American citizens and voters. I will continue to fight to ensure that Texas has free and fair elections.”
Raybold was asked if the fact that there were only 10 indicted individuals—out of 800,000 Tarrant County, Texas voters—showed that the issue was not widespread.
“One vote, one instance of voter fraud is a problem because it dilutes the value of every American citizen who casts a ballot,” he replied, adding that officials were not concerned about which candidate the alleged fraudsters picked.
The arrests also come a week after three individuals were arrested for allegedly paying homeless people on Los Angeles’ Skid Row to sign petitions using information from stolen voter identities.
One man was able to collect more than 41,000 signatures.
In another case from last week, a former mayoral candidate in Cotton Valley, Louisiana, was charged with illegally submitting a voting application for a noncitizen from Jamaica.
The application claimed he was a U.S. citizen, and he allegedly voted in the 2024 local and federal elections.
Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report.
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