Federal Prosecutor Brings Noncitizen Voting Cases From Past Texas Elections

The top federal prosecutor for the Western District of Texas says his office is investigating possible illegal voting by noncitizens in past elections, and has already charged two lawful permanent residents with casting ballots in November 2024.

U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons told KSAT that his office has a “handful” of investigations underway. He did not give an exact number. “Most of these that we’re prosecuting right now are 2024, 2022, and so on, further back,” Simmons said. None of them involve the current election, he said.

Two cases from 2024

In September, Simmons announced charges in Del Rio and Midland, according to his office’s releases.

In Del Rio, a 46-year-old Mexican national who became a lawful permanent resident in December 2023 is accused of casting an early-voting ballot at the Del Rio Civic Center on October 26, 2024. A criminal complaint says she admitted in a sworn statement to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in November 2025 that she had registered and voted. She is charged with voting by an alien and a second federal count, and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

In Midland, a 51-year-old Mexican national who has held lawful permanent resident status since 2010 is accused of registering to vote in October 2020 with her Texas driver’s license and voting in the November 2024 general election, according to Midland County voting records cited by prosecutors. She faces up to one year in federal prison if convicted.

Homeland Security Investigations is investigating both cases. A charge is only an allegation, and both women are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

“If you don’t have integrity in your elections, you don’t have a country,” Simmons said in the Del Rio release.

How cases are found

Investigators usually compare immigration records with voter registration records and may interview people before deciding whether to file charges, Simmons told KSAT. “The voter fraud really comes into somebody registering to vote and representing that they’re a U.S. citizen when in reality they are not, and then maybe going to vote after that,” he said.

The state is running its own review. The Texas Secretary of State ran the names of the state’s 18 million registered voters through the federal government’s citizenship database last fall and flagged 2,724 possible noncitizens, the office said in September. A follow-up review with the Department of Public Safety found that 578 of them had shown they were citizens. On September 15, the office referred 117 cases of possible noncitizen voting to the Texas attorney general.

The same day, federal prosecutors in Fort Worth announced charges against seven noncitizens in North Texas, as the Texian Partisan reported.

Simmons said the cases should not keep eligible voters home. “No U.S. Citizen should be afraid of voting and exercising their right to vote,” he told KSAT. “We’re not here to suppress anybody’s vote. If you’re a U.S. citizen, we want you to vote, we encourage you to go.”