The Justice Department (DOJ) announced charges against 16 people in seven states for alleged illegal voting, illegal voter registration, and related election crimes. Eight of the defendants were charged in Texas.
DOJ says the cases include noncitizens accused of voting in federal elections, false citizenship claims, and naturalization fraud. Investigators also turned up alleged passport fraud, wire fraud, and illegal firearm purchases.
The department was direct about the consequences:
“If you are not allowed to vote in our elections, you shouldn’t. And if you do, that’s a crime.”
It added a broader warning to anyone considering it:
“Let this be a warning to anyone trying to cheat and undermine our elections.”
Georgia has one of the more striking cases. Analiea Milliscent Eccles, a 44-year-old Venezuelan national and DACA recipient, allegedly voted nine times between 2008 and 2024. Prosecutors charged her with voting as a noncitizen and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to vote. DACA can provide work authorization and protection from removal, but it does not confer citizenship or voting rights.
Avila Gomez, a Mexican national living in Idaho, allegedly claimed U.S. citizenship to register before voting in May 2022 and November 2024. His indictment also includes wire fraud, theft of government funds, passport and identification-document fraud, and firearm charges.
Then there is Monica Carzoli, a 46-year-old Mexican national and lawful permanent resident. DOJ says Carzoli admitted registering to vote and voting in the November 2024 election. Authorities arrested her in Del Rio, Texas.
New Jersey defendant Santana Coulibaly, a lawful permanent resident, registered to vote in 2016 and voted in the 2018 and 2020 federal elections, according to DOJ. She also submitted a provisional ballot in the 2024 presidential election. Prosecutors say she made fraudulent statements on naturalization applications filed in 2021 and 2024.
Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald told Fox News that the Trump administration has now charged 50 noncitizens with illegal voting.
“America’s elections are for Americans,” McDonald told Fox News.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News that officials have made 151 arrests with more than 1,620 cases still open. He said authorities are also reviewing more than 300,000 suspected cases; leads under investigation, not confirmed illegal votes.
Texas ran its own parallel effort. The state cross-checked roughly 18 million registered voters against the federal SAVE database and flagged 2,724 as potential noncitizens. More than 550 of those turned out to be U.S. citizens and were restored to the rolls. Texas officials referred 117 cases to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office for investigation.
Worth noting: most of these cases surfaced not through tip lines or whistleblowers, but through routine database checks, the kind of cross-referencing that election integrity critics have spent years pushing for. The system, when used, worked
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