Trump DOJ Charges Nearly 4 Times More Noncitizens in Election Fraud Cases Than Biden DOJ

In less than two years, federal prosecutors in the Trump administration charged about four times as many noncitizens with election fraud crimes as the Biden administration’s Justice Department in the entirety of the four-year term.

Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term, charges have been brought against 50 noncitizen defendants for alleged offenses such as illegally voting or illegally registering to vote, according to the Justice Department.

Also, during this Trump term, 17 noncitizens were convicted of voting-related offenses. One defendant was found not guilty, while the remaining defendants’ cases are pending, according to Justice Department figures.

During the four years of the Biden administration under Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department brought charges against 13 noncitizens for illegal voting-related offenses. Of those, nine defendants were found guilty, including two whose voter fraud charges were dismissed as part of plea agreements.

“The contrast with the prior administration could not be clearer — this department is enforcing the law against noncitizen voting in ways the last administration simply refused to,” a Justice Department spokesperson told the Daily Signal. “Protecting the integrity of our elections is a top priority for this Department.”

Trump has advocated for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which requires photo ID to vote and proof of citizenship to register to vote. Though prospects for the bill’s passage look dim before Election Day, its supporters point to the prosecutions as evidence of the need for additional safeguards.

If annualized over four years, Trump’s second-term Justice Department has brought almost 10 times as many charges as the Biden Justice Department. That means, at the current pace, it amounts to about 31 defendants per year under Trump, compared with 3.25 per year under Biden.

“These are illegal votes that are cast and counted, and once they’re counted, they can’t be uncounted,” Cleta Mitchell, the co-founder of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, told the Daily Signal.

“First the Left says this never happens, noncitizens never vote. Then you say, ‘Look at this,’” Mitchell added. “Then they come back to say, well, it’s not widespread. How many illegal votes are OK with you? We want to make sure there are no illegal votes cast.”

To demonstrate the impact a single vote—or a single illegal vote—could have on an election, the Public Interest Legal Foundation established a database showing 1,376 tied elections and 531 contests decided by a single vote since 1982.

A majority of the Justice Department charges and convictions in this area came since October, or the start of fiscal year 2026, with 29 defendants. In that time, there were 11 convictions.

In most cases, defendants in both administrations were charged with multiple crimes.

For example, in December 2021, during the Biden era, the Eastern District of North Carolina announced an indictment against a Bahamian citizen on 10 counts, including voting in elections from 2018 through 2020; falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to register to vote; passport fraud; and false statements.

In September 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama charged an illegal immigrant from Guatemala with using a U.S. citizen’s identity, registering to vote, and voting in Alabama in the 2016 and 2020 primary and general elections. She pleaded guilty on Jan. 15, 2025, days before Trump’s inauguration.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida garnered guilty pleas from a Cuban national in September 2025, a Haitian national convicted in April of this year, and a Brazilian national in May for illegal voting.

In May 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey announced four separate noncitizen voting prosecutions. In June, the office announced that a French citizen pleaded guilty to voting in the 2022 election.

The Justice Department has received assistance in several cases from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations, the law enforcement wing of the Department of Homeland Security.

“Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: We will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences—including criminal charges and deportation,” the Department of Homeland Security spokesman told the Daily Signal in an email.

Homeland Security Investigations began focusing this week on California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington state, and Wisconsin, CNN reported.

“Since April 2025, more than 24,000 cases have been identified by SAVE as potential non-U.S. citizens who were on voter rolls, and those cases have been referred to ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation,” the Department of Homeland Security spokesman said.

“Over the past year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has overhauled the SAVE program, making it fully operational and providing states with an easy-to-use tool that has resulted in over 60 million voter verification queries processed since April 2025,” the Department of Homeland Security spokesman added.