FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday announced the arrests of 10 noncitizens after a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted them on charges of illegally voting in the 2024 election.
"Today with our Justice Department partners we are announcing arrests and indictments of ten individuals - including one illegal alien and nine non-citizens - who illegally voted in the 2024 election in North Carolina, as alleged. American elections are for American citizens," Patel said.
According to the US Attorney's Office, all 10 are accused of falsely claiming to be US citizens to register and vote in the 2024 general election, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Nine also face a count of voting by an alien.
Nine of the defendants are lawful permanent residents, and one is described as being in the country illegally.
Federal agents made the arrests after the indictments were returned.
U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle said the cases "should serve as a stark warning to anyone contemplating voting illegally in our 2026 election: we are watching, we will find you if you do it, and we will prosecute you."
The office said the indictments bring the number of illegal voters it has charged or convicted in 2026 to 12. An indictment is only an accusation, and each defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The numbers behind the announcement are deliberately small and deliberately loud: ten indictments, twelve total charged or convicted this year, and a warning aimed at a date — the 2026 election — rather than at the defendants in the dock.
Boyle's line — "we are watching, we will find you if you do it, and we will prosecute you" — is the sound of a Justice Department that has decided deterrence is part of the job. Whether ten cases can deter a country is an open question. That the FBI intends to try is the news.
The timing is the point. With the Nov. 3 midterms less than three weeks away, Boyle's warning was not aimed only at the ten defendants — it was aimed at anyone thinking of testing the system this fall. Voting is sacred, and sacred things get guarded. The message from Patel's FBI: American elections are for American citizens, and that is not a slogan — it is the law, and it will be enforced.
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