Defense lawyers, election experts say prosecutions confirm noncitizen voting is rare
The Justice Department has charged more than 60 people in a pre-midterm push to prosecute noncitizens for illegal voting, with senior department officials directing prosecutors in the field to file as many cases as possible before November’s elections, people familiar with the process said.
The push reflects priorities set by President Trump, who has alleged that U.S. elections are vulnerable to widespread fraud, particularly illegal voting by people who are not citizens. “We are going to keep on investigating and spending the resources and time and effort on these cases because we think they do matter,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a recent event announcing new prosecutions.
Defense lawyers and election experts say the enforcement push confirms that the underlying conduct is rare, isolated, and does not affect election outcomes. “When the Department of Justice devotes enormous resources to identify and prosecute the miniscule number of noncitizens who seek to vote, we ought to ask why,” said Ross Brockway, a public defender representing one of the defendants.
One of those charged is Gabriel Covarrubias, 44, who moved to the U.S. from Mexico at 14 and built a home-remodeling business after acquiring a false identity, according to court records. He was driving to work from his home in the Atlanta suburbs when a state trooper pulled him over for too-dark window tint. He was suspected of lying on a passport application and of illegally voting in the 2024 presidential election — when federal agents asked whom he voted for, he said President Trump, a fellow business owner. Covarrubias pleaded guilty last month to two offenses and now faces up to 10 years in prison and possible deportation.
Brockway described his client as a job creator and father of two American-citizen children who was being attacked for trying to participate in the democratic process. “We ask that he be treated as a neighbor, rather than branded as a criminal,” he said.
There isn’t a common link among the dozens of cases the Justice Department has touted, and court records don’t show an organized effort to commit fraud. Defendants include registered Democrats, Republicans and people with no party affiliation. They range in age from early 20s to late 70s and hail from more than 25 different countries. “I don’t think we can say there’s a pattern we’ve identified. Every one of these situations is different,” Blanche said in announcing charges against 10 noncitizens in Minnesota.
The department has publicized the cases for maximum effect. Blanche unveiled the Minnesota charges while surrounded by poster-sized photos of some of the arrestees being handcuffed, and in a batch of cases announced this week, the department published 11 photos of lawful permanent residents being apprehended.
Senior Justice Department officials have stepped up pressure on prosecutors to charge as many election-crimes cases as they can, directing them to decline prosecutions rarely and only with approval from the U.S. attorney in their jurisdiction, people familiar with the process said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said every illegal vote cancels out the vote of a lawful American citizen, and that the prosecutions “deter others from breaking the law.” “We want any alien thinking about casting an illegal ballot in November to think twice,” she said.
With data from some state voter rolls and other sources, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security have scrutinized thousands of leads and sent hundreds of them to federal prosecutors, officials said. DHS currently has more than 1,600 open investigations into voting by noncitizens, officials said.
Prosecutors in most cases have filed short indictments that offer few, if any, clues about what led people to cast their votes. The Justice Department is generally bringing two types of cases: felony charges of making a false claim of U.S. citizenship to vote, which requires showing a person knew they were ineligible and voted anyway; and alien voting, a misdemeanor that requires only proof that someone was a noncitizen and voted.
A federal judge in Miami this month struck down one such misdemeanor case as unconstitutional, saying Congress overstepped its authority by imposing a voter qualification on the states. The Justice Department has appealed the ruling, which could jeopardize many of the cases.
Beyond the legal questions, some cases may prove difficult to prosecute before juries, according to Georgetown law professor Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor. A jury “could look at some defendants quite sympathetically,” Butler said. “That’s not a defense, but the reality is some jurors won’t want to convict because they feel sympathy to the defendant or they feel this is a waste of government resources.”
Many of those charged are living in the U.S. legally with green cards. Khalwinder Singh Bhengura, 69, a grandfather from India who struggles with English, said he did not understand he was registering to vote when he checked a box on his Texas driver’s license application two years ago, according to his attorney. When Bhengura received his proof of voter registration in the mail shortly later, he assumed he could head to his local library and cast his ballot in the 2024 election.
A 46-year-old Mexican woman living in the U.S. legally told a federal agent that she did not read the qualifications on the Texas voter-registration application requiring her to be a citizen, according to court documents.
A 31-year-old Honduran man landed on authorities’ radar after he disrupted immigration officers during a February protest in Camarillo, California, a misdemeanor citation to which he pleaded guilty. Prosecutors said the man later sent threatening messages to a federal agent, including one that referenced the midterm elections. An investigator then searched databases and discovered the man was registered to vote but was not a citizen.