The Trump administration says Americans should prepare between now and Election Day for a wave of new arrests and prosecutions over alleged non-citizen voter fraud. Why it matters: The Trump administration is deploying hundreds of federal investigators and attorneys to pursue President Trump's long-running fixation — and test a broader Republican claim that tougher enforcement will uncover far more illegal voting.
- "This initiative is a tier one priority," a Justice Department official told reporters on Tuesday. "It's a top priority for the attorney general and for the White House."
The big picture: Across the country, there are now 1,600 open cases of potential voter fraud and 160 people have been arrested, a Homeland Security Investigations official said Tuesday.
- HSI agents have been requesting and combing through publicly available voter data to find cases of non-citizens registering to vote or voting when they're ineligible. The FBI has been working on these cases too.
- DOJ has charged 24 immigrants this calendar year following the prioritization, according to agency press releases. The accused are a mixture of undocumented immigrations and legal residents.
- The number of prosecutions will "rise significantly each week going forward from now until the election," the DOJ official said.
Zoom in: To support these investigations, which the HSI official called agent-time intensive, Homeland Security staff have shifted work time from other priorities.
- HSI agents typically investigate smuggling, trafficking, financial fraud and sexual exploitation crimes.
The intrigue: Staff usually focused on finding immigration fraud at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the office for legal immigration, have also been tasked with searching for possible non-citizens registered in state voter files.
- This staff sent referrals to HSI to investigate, according to the New York Times, and flagged the potential non-citizens by the thousands to state election officials.
- For three weeks, the fraud team was tasked with reviewing voter files and not allowed to do other work, a person familiar with the agency's work told Axios.
The other side: Instances of mistaken registrations and cases of non-citizen voting are rare, but they've long been investigated by the federal government.
- The extent of this administration's efforts to prioritize searching for these cases is novel for the federal government and the local election officials involved.
- "It's not typical and it's not appropriate," a former senior Justice Department official told Axios in July.
Between the lines: New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherril revealed in July that 6,600 non-citizens were registered to vote through a software error.
- The DOJ official said there are also similar system errors registering people who aren't intending to register in other states.
- But they declined to say whether any government officials or vendors responsible for these errors would be held responsible as individual voters now are.
The bottom line: "These investigations and these indictments are a major deterrent for this election" against illegal voting, Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, a legal affairs-focused nonprofit closely aligned with the president.
- "There's a new sheriff in town: His name is Donald Trump, and if illegals vote in our elections, they will be prosecuted and deported."
