The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) warned this Tuesday that it will locate, arrest, and pursue legal action against those who vote illegally in the , in a message broadcast while millions of Americans were heading to the polls to determine control of Congress.
"if you vote illegally, we will find you. We will locate you, arrest you, and prosecute you. There will be no way to escape," stated the federal agency in a post on its official X account.
The message coincides with an offensive by the Trump administration to identify foreigners who allegedly registered or voted without having U.S. citizenship.
In federal elections, voting is reserved for U.S. citizens. The prohibition also applies to permanent residents who have not yet been naturalized, although certain jurisdictions allow foreigners to participate exclusively in some local elections.
Federal legislation, outlined in Article 611 of Title 18 of the United States Code, provides for fines and penalties of up to one year in prison for illegally voting in federal elections, with specific exceptions established in the statute itself.
The ICE warning was made known on the same day that Daily Caller published information about 14 other foreign citizens identified in agency documents related to arrests, charges, and investigations for alleged electoral irregularities.
Among those mentioned is Andrés García, a Cuban national, who is facing charges for voting without having U.S. citizenship.
The documents also include citizens from Mexico, Liberia, Canada, Brazil, Vietnam, Somalia, and Trinidad and Tobago, linked to alleged violations committed in previous electoral processes.
The information differentiates between different legal situations: some foreigners were arrested, others are facing charges, and certain files contain statements regarding alleged irregular voting. The inclusion of a person in those records does not imply that they have been found guilty.
Consulted by Daily Caller, Micah Bock, deputy director of Public Affairs at ICE, defended the ongoing arrests for alleged electoral fraud and stated that every illegally cast vote by an foreigner harms the rights of American citizens.
The agency had already announced similar investigations in the previous weeks. At the end of October, ICE reported the arrest of a Cuban who allegedly admitted to voting illegally in the United States, as part of another group of 17 foreigners identified for possible electoral offenses.
The investigations have also sparked legal disputes over the methods used to identify potential voters without U.S. citizenship.
In October, it was revealed that the investigative division of ICE had processed over 99 million electoral records, according to internal documents obtained by the organization Democracy Forward through a public records request.
The initiative included cross-referencing voter data and citizenship checks, while civil organizations warned that errors in the records could affect individuals entitled to vote.
Recently, a federal judge limited certain operations of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in nine states due to the risk of voter intimidation and concerns about the reliability of the data used in some investigations.
A federal appeals court subsequently denied the Government's request to suspend those restrictions, which remain in effect during the election day on November 3.
The debate also extends to the presence of immigration agents at polling places. The Department of Homeland Security had assured that ICE had no plans to conduct widespread operations targeting the polling centers, although it maintained the possibility of carrying out specific actions based on investigations.
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