First posted on Instagram
The Department of Homeland Security will gather voting logs from across the country after the midterm elections and check them against the voter registers to make sure no one voted illegally, Secretary Markwayne Mullin has announced — as federal prosecutors in South Texas charged five non-U.S. citizens with unlawfully voting in federal elections, falsely claiming American citizenship, or lying on immigration documents.
Mullin announced the review in a Fox News interview on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 2026, saying: “We WILL be looking at the registers and all the voting and all those that voted after the election — and making sure that no one voted illegally, because even past this election, it is still DHS’s job to make sure that this was an election that was handled by the federal laws. Meaning that only those that were legally able to vote, voted.” He added: “After this election we’ll be gathering voting logs, and we’ll be going through those and making sure that no illegals voted.” On Election Day itself, Mullin warned in a social media post: “If you vote illegally in this country, and you are NOT eligible to vote, [DHS] will find you, hunt you down, and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Only American citizens should be deciding American elections.”
On Friday, October 30, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas announced charges against five non-U.S. citizens from Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria and Mexico. Ali Khan, 33, an illegal alien and DACA recipient from Trinidad and Tobago living in La Porte, and Mohammed Omar Hassan, 61, a Nigerian citizen living in Houston, are each charged in Houston with voting by an alien in a federal election. Diego Benavides Rodriguez, 29, a Mexican citizen living in Laredo, is charged with voting by an alien and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship. Jose Vazquez-Mendoza, 51, a Mexican citizen living in Port Isabel, is charged with voting by an alien. Karen Hinojosa-Martinez, 37, a Mexican citizen living in McAllen, was indicted for lying on immigration documents after allegedly voting in a federal election. Prosecutors say Khan, Hassan and Rodriguez voted in the 2024 election, Hassan also voted in 2022, and Vazquez-Mendoza voted in the 2022 special election for Texas’ 34th Congressional District.
U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz said: “Free, fair, and honest elections — unmarred by fraud, errors, or illegality — are fundamental to a healthy constitutional republic… American elections are for Americans only, and these foreigners will be brought to justice.” John A. Pasciucco, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio, said voting in U.S. elections is a right reserved for U.S. citizens. Rodriguez and Hinojosa-Martinez face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of falsely claiming citizenship or lying on immigration documents; the illegal voting charge carries up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine. The FBI and HSI investigated the cases with help from the Texas Attorney General’s Office and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The charges are accusations, and each defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted.
Mullin told Fox News in September that DHS is investigating 1,620 cases of alleged voter fraud involving noncitizens and reviewing hundreds of thousands of additional cases, with 151 arrests made. He has since said the number of possible noncitizens found on voter rolls nationwide could exceed 300,000. On November 2, the Justice Department announced charges against 63 individuals for election-related crimes, and said it has charged 195 aliens across 25 states with illegal voting and registration offences in the last nine weeks.
The push has faced court setbacks. A federal judge in California blocked DHS from carrying out election-related field interviews in nine states in October, ruling that the target lists behind the effort were built on flawed data. Election experts say noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare, and noncitizens have never decided the outcome of an American election.