‘Early Stages’: Federal Immigration Database Reveals How Many Noncitizens Potentially Voted in Texas

Just two weeks after the Trump administration released federal immigration data to states, Texas identified 33 potential noncitizens who voted in the November 2024 election and referred them for criminal investigation. 

The state is only in its “early stages” of analyzing data, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said, so this could be the first round of discovery, as states have only had access to the immigration data since late May. 

In response to an election integrity executive order by President Donald Trump, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services updated the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system to coordinate with the Social Security Administration and share the information with state and local governments. 

Trump’s March Executive Order 14248, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” included a provision directing the Department of Homeland Security and Citizenship and Immigration Services to make the verification system accessible to state and local governments. 

“Gaining access to this database has been a game-changer,” Nelson said in a public statement. “Not only have we been able to identify individuals who should not have voted in the last election, we have also been able to confirm naturalization of dozens more.”

As detailed in my book, “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” Texas has had numerous problems with voter fraud scandals that led to criminal charges, usually at the local level for mayoral or county races. Noncitizen voting was at the core of many of these cases. 

“We are in the early stages of this pilot program, but we already see promising results,” Nelson added. “This may be the most current and accurate dataset there is when it comes to citizenship verification.”

Texas and other states have advocated for having access to the database for more than a year. 

Nelson reported the names to the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as required under the state election code. Both federal and Texas law only allows citizens to vote. 

In November, Texans will vote on whether to adopt an amendment to the state constitution to prevent any jurisdiction in Texas from allowing noncitizens to vote. 

The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system is used for verifying lawful U.S. citizenship and immigration status. It is operated by Citizenship and Immigration Services and provides federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local agencies with U.S. citizenship and immigration status information about individuals’ eligibility for certain public benefits and licenses, including voter eligibility verification. 

A 1996 federal law specifically prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections for president or members of Congress. However, the law doesn’t dictate what local governments can do for local or state elections.

In 2023, Virginia removed about 1,500 registrants from the voter rolls who were noncitizens. Massachusetts and Ohio both also removed noncitizens from voter rolls in recent years, and just this week, Ohio identified another 30 noncitizens registered to vote. In 2022, Georgia found that over 1,600 noncitizens attempted to vote. In 2017, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes resigned after the state admitted to registering illegal immigrants for several years. 

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