The Trump administration is reportedly intensifying efforts to prosecute noncitizens accused of illegally voting, despite evidence showing such offenses are extremely rare. According to The New York Times, Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh told dozens of prosecutors during a May 13 conference call that the more than 90 open investigations into noncitizen voting were a top priority for the Justice Department.
Rare Offense, Heightened Focus
Reviews have consistently found that noncitizen voting is virtually nonexistent. A recent federal review of approximately 49.5 million voter registrations uncovered no evidence of widespread fraud by noncitizens and referred only about 10,000 cases to Homeland Security Investigations for further scrutiny. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump and his allies frequently describe noncitizen voting as a widespread threat to election integrity, often echoing a racist conspiracy theory that Democrats are fostering illegal immigration to sway elections.
Political Context and Actions
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump accused Democrats without evidence of “stealing the Vote” and urged Republicans to pass the Save America Act, which would impose stringent proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters. The Justice Department has also sued states for detailed access to their voting records. Trump has pushed to largely end mail-in voting, which he baselessly claims is fraudulent, despite voting by mail himself. He has refused to rule out stationing troops or ICE agents at polling places this midterm season, a move critics say could intimidate legal voters.
Beyond voter ID fights, the administration is pushing Republican allies to pursue unusual mid-decade redistricting ahead of the midterms to create more GOP seats. This has sparked a nationwide redistricting war, with both red and blue states rewriting maps. The conservative-majority Supreme Court recently bolstered Republicans by gutting parts of the Voting Rights Act and rejecting a Louisiana election map that would have created a majority-Black voting district likely to favor Democrats.
