Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,
The Trump Justice Department has secured roughly two dozen non-citizens voting arrests, prosecutions or convictions in the last few months, with another nearly 90 more cases under investigation.
Just the News reports that the wave of prosecutions represents a growing number of individuals charged in the last year with illegally voting in U.S. federal elections as foreigners.
Department of Justice (DOJ) officials say all 50 states were sent notices this month that election officials can and will be prosecuted too if they allow non-citizens to vote.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told the Just the News, “This is not some idle threat.”
The letters state that state election officers face potential criminal penalties for “aiding and abetting” non-citizen voting. This includes knowingly retaining non-citizens on voting registration lists or assisting them with obtaining and casting ballots.
State officials were given a strict 5-day deadline by the DOJ to submit explanations of how they are complying with federal voter eligibility laws.
Dhillon drew a clear line on non-citizen voting, saying:
It isn’t just bad policy to let non-citizens vote in federal elections, it’s a crime. And this Department of Justice will intend to prosecute that crime if these election officials, having been informed that they are non-citizens on the voter rolls, knowingly allow those people to vote, enable their enrollment on the voter rolls, are passive in the face of this knowledge, etc.
Dhillon believes the numbers of foreigners illicitly voting in elections is probably higher but has been frustrated that U.S. Attorney offices across the country haven’t made illegal voting a larger priority until just recently.
Federal law requires voters to be American citizens to vote on the federal level, but some states and cities allow non-citizens to vote in local elections.
The DOJ push comes as President Donald Trump tries to persuade a hesitant U.S. Senate to pass the Save America Act that would impose citizenship and voter ID on all federal election voters.