President Donald Trump’s administration is ramping up criminal prosecutions of noncitizens accused of voting in US elections as he presses claims of widespread election fraud ahead of the November midterms.
The US Justice Department has brought criminal charges against about 20 people this month under a law criminalizing “voting by aliens”, roughly 13% of all prosecutions brought under the statute since it was enacted three decades ago, according to a Reuters review of court records and government statements.
The investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security has mobilized hundreds of agents in all 50 states to aid what a Justice Department official described as a “tier-one priority for the attorney general and for the White House.”
The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the investigations, said the pace of prosecutions would likely increase in the weeks leading up to the November 3 midterms, which will determine control of the US Senate and House of Representatives.
The spate of recent cases is part of a long-running attempt by the Trump administration to demonstrate that voting by non-US citizens poses a major threat to the security of elections, despite studies showing the practice is rare.
Trump and his supporters say it is part of an organized conspiracy led by Democrats who hope to retake Congress. Trump is pushing Republicans in Congress to toughen up voting requirements.
Critics of the administration allege the claims are aimed at diminishing confidence in the vote and potentially laying the groundwork to challenge election results, with polls showing Trump’s Republican Party could face significant losses in November.
The rhetoric about noncitizen voting is “little by little eroding the trust of the public,” Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat, told Reuters.
Trump administration officials have pointed to the recent cases to push back against Democratic criticism.
“The folks on the other side, the opponents of the president, insist this never happens,” acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told reporters on Tuesday. “When you have dozens of cases that we brought just in the last few weeks, I think that discourages and defeats their characterization.”
A Reuters review published in July found that prior to Trump’s second term, federal prosecutions for
