(The Center Square) – Texas continues to crack down on noncitizens voting. New actions were announced Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas and the Texas Secretary of State.
In the northern district, U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould announced that seven non-citizens were charged with unlawfully voting in federal elections or falsely claiming U.S. citizenship in Tarrant County.
Six were indicted on Sept. 10; one was charged by a criminal complaint on Sept. 11. All seven have been arrested. Federal agents arrested one on Sept. 11, five on Sept.14 and one surrendered to federal authorities on Tuesday.
“Federal elections belong to American citizens – period,” Raybould said. “When individuals who are not citizens cast ballots or falsely claim citizenship, they violate federal law, undermine the integrity of our electoral process and erode the public’s confidence in the fairness of our elections. These charges send a clear message: We will enforce the law. We will hold offenders accountable. And we will safeguard the voting process for the citizens it is meant to serve.
“These are not isolated incidents in North Texas,” he added. On the same day that several noncitizens were indicted, an illegal foreign national from Mexico was sentenced to 36 months in prison for aggravated identity theft, identity theft, “voting by an alien in a federal election” and false statements of citizenship, his office said.
Charges include “voting by an alien in a federal election and false statement of citizenship in order to register to vote,” and making false statements in relation to naturalization.
Those charged include a 67-year-old Nigerian citizen and lawful permanent resident (LPR, Green Card holder) in Tarrant County; a 27-year-old Nigerian citizen and LPR; 41-year-old Mexican citizen and LPR; a 69-year-old Indian citizen and LPR; a 20-year-old citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo and LPR; a 38-year-old Mexican citizen and LPR; and a 36-year-old Mexican national in the country illegally who was ordered to be deported in July and remained a fugitive until he turned himself in.
Homeland Security Investigations and FBI Dallas field offices conducted investigations with assistance from the OAG’s Election Integrity Unit and Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office.
Also on Tuesday, the Texas Secretary of State referred 117 cases to the OAG to investigate noncitizens who have potentially voted in federal elections. The referral “is part of a larger update on Texas’ ongoing efforts to review voter citizenship ahead of the Nov. 3 Election,” the office said.
“By law and according to our Constitution, citizenship is a requirement to vote in Texas, and we have a duty to ensure that only eligible voters participate in our elections,” Secretary of State Robert Howden said. “We also have a responsibility to make sure eligible citizens can exercise their right to vote, which is why we are taking great care with this data and conducting additional layers of due diligence.”
Last fall, the SOS ran the names of 18 million registered voters in Texas through the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. The process identified 2,724 potential noncitizens on Texas’ voter rolls. The list of names was referred to county registrars to conduct their own investigations pursuant to state law.
The SOS also partnered with the Texas Department of Public Safety to manually review the 2,724 names. They also asked counties to report back the results of their local investigations, the SOS said.
The additional review narrowed the number of potential noncitizens by showing that 578 voters demonstrated citizenship. Among them were 506 whose passport information had been added to SAVE after the SOS’s initial data comparison. The SOS then advised counties to reinstate these registrations if they had been removed.
The SOS announcement comes after the SOS identified nearly 3,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls in Texas last October, The Center Square reported.
The SOS analysis of voter rolls crosschecked with SAVE began last year after the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security made available the SAVE database to state governments. The Biden administration had denied states access to the database contrary to federal law, prompting Texas and 16 states to sue for access.
In 2024, Texas removed 6,500 noncitizens from its voter rolls and requested information on noncitizens from DHS/USCIS, The Center Square reported. This included a list of 454,289 registered voters in Texas “who have never had their citizenship verified.” It requested access to crosscheck the data with federal citizenship data, which the Biden administration rejected.
Last year, Texas was one of the first states to participate in a pilot program with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to perform voter list maintenance using SAVE.
If found guilty, the offenses result in the foreign nationals losing their LPR status and being deported, according to federal law. The Mexican national with a deportation order faces expedited removal, authorities have told The Center Square.
