A senior Justice Department official recently instructed prosecutors nationwide to redouble efforts to pursue criminal charges against noncitizens who have voted, a type of fraud that has animated President Trump’s campaigns but that experts say is exceedingly rare.
During an internal conference call with dozens of prosecutors in regional offices on May 13, Aakash Singh, an associate deputy attorney general, expressed displeasure about what he described as more than 90 open investigations into people who possibly voted in U.S. elections though they are not citizens, according to an official familiar with the discussion who was not authorized to describe it publicly. Those cases, Mr. Singh told the group, were languishing.
Mr. Singh stressed to the prosecutors that the cases were a top priority, urging prosecutors to “get creative” as they worked to bring charges, the official recalled. Mr. Singh added that the acting attorney general was also “crystal clear” about their importance. Immigrants convicted of that type of fraud, Mr. Singh said, should be deported.
Mr. Singh’s reference to roughly 90 open investigations — a tally that has not been publicly reported — provides a rare glimpse at the current scale of the Trump administration’s progress on an issue that has been a high priority. Even smaller than the number of active investigations, experts and a review of records suggest, is the number of noncitizens who have so far been charged with such voting crimes since President Trump took office for a second term.
Some experts saw Mr. Singh’s disclosure as a reflection of how minimal a problem noncitizen voting is.
“I see this as a vindication of our current system,” said Benjamin Cover, a law professor at the University of Idaho who specializes in election law and has written about noncitizen voting cases. “Even when you have a very aggressive investigative and prosecutorial effort to go after all the fraud you could possibly find, the number is very small.”
President Trump has repeatedly claimed that Democrats have allowed unauthorized immigrants to enter the United States in order to gain an electoral advantage, and his administration has called for combating election fraud to safeguard the process and build confidence in the electoral system. In recent months, administration officials have intensified efforts to investigate such election fraud cases.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for its own tally of charged cases. But Matthew Tragesser, a department spokesman, said officials believe that the cases investigators have so far uncovered “represent only a small fraction of the problem.”
Mr. Tragesser said that the department intends to prosecute every case of noncitizen voting supported by evidence. “Election security is essential to the integrity and survival of our constitutional republic,” he said.
Falsely claiming U.S. citizenship on a voter registration form is a felony under federal law. Voting as a noncitizen is a misdemeanor under federal law.
The Justice Department’s call to charge more noncitizen voting cases was issued as the White House has struggled to push legislation that would require all Americans to provide proof of citizenship in person to register to vote. It also comes as the Justice Department is suing several states in an effort to compel them to turn over voter rolls.
Don Palmer, an elections expert at the Heritage Foundation who worked on voting issues at the Justice Department between 2006 and 2008, said the prevalence of noncitizen fraud is hard to gauge.
“Our system was not designed to verify citizenship eligibility,” he said. “This is an issue that has crept up as more immigrants who are not citizens have come to the country.”
Early this year, a review of 49.5 million voter registrations provided by several states to the Department of Homeland Security yielded 10,000 records — or .02 percent — flagged for needing further analysis to determine whether the voters were eligible.
Several state election officials have determined that many voters get erroneously flagged as noncitizens in these reviews.
Election officials and experts say a more reliable snapshot of noncitizen voting comes from audits some Republican-run states have performed, which show rates that are extraordinarily small.
In 2024, a review by Georgia’s secretary of state found that of the 8.2 million voters on its rolls, 20 lacked citizenship. A similar audit in Tennessee found 42 possible noncitizens in a voting pool of 4.3 million. A more recent review in Utah found 27 noncitizens among more the more than two million people registered to vote.
Steve Simon, Minnesota’s secretary of state, a Democrat who is among those fighting the Trump administration’s effort to examine Minnesota’s state voter records, said that the incidence of noncitizen voting in the United States is “microscopic” and generally the result of ignorance.
“Of all the things that someone would risk deportation for, casting one of tens of millions of ballots for a preferred candidate in a presidential election has to be an extremely low priority,” he said.
Mr. Cover, the law professor, has kept a national database since January 2025 of people charged with voting as noncitizens. His count includes 20 defendants. A separate review by The Times using a commercial legal database found 25 cases, including the ones Mr. Cover has studied.
Among people charged with such violations last year were a Ukrainian woman and her daughter who received green cards in 2023. When confronted by investigators, the mother, Svitlana Demydenko, said she did not realize she was not eligible to vote, according to a criminal complaint. Ms. Demydenko reportedly said she voted “because she wanted to support the country.” Her daughter told investigators she had hoped her vote would “make a difference.”
A lawyer for the two women — who have entered not guilty pleas and are awaiting trial — did not respond to a request for comment.
Last September, prosecutors in Louisiana charged a man with voting as a noncitizen. Within days, a judge dismissed the case after prosecutors disclosed in a filing that “recently obtained information raises a legitimate question” about whether a crime had been committed. Prosecutors did not respond to questions about the case.
One of the first people charged with voting as a noncitizen since Mr. Trump returned to the White House was Akeel Abdul Jamiel, an Iraqi immigrant. A Justice Department news release about the case asserted that he had voted in the 2020 election and described that as “a callous and illegal act” and an “insult to the democratic process.”
A review of the case docket showed no activity since Mr. Jamiel was charged in late April 2025. Tyler J. Toomey, a spokesman for U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of New York, said the case was still active but has not advanced because “the defendant has not appeared.”
Mr. Jamiel, who did not respond to requests for comment, filed multiple lawsuits in recent years in which he complained bitterly about illegal immigrants and expressed admiration for Mr. Trump and his border policies.
Kitty Bennett and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy. He welcomes tips and can be reached at elondono.81 on Signal.
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