Trump claims non-citizen voting is widespread in America: Numbers say otherwise

According to US President Donald Trump, America is a hotbed of election fraud – and foreigners are among the main culprits.

He presented the voting of people who are not citizens of the United States of America (US) as part of a broad conspiracy by the Democratic Party aimed at weakening the power of Republicans, Reuters reports today.

On social media, Trump claimed that "crazy" Democrats were allowing unverified migrants into the US "SO THEY COULD VOTE, VOTE, VOTE."

He called for the elections to be placed under federal control due to the danger of non-citizens voting, according to Reuters in the article "Trump claims that non-citizen voting is widespread in America. The numbers say otherwise."

Trump also claimed that illegal voting by non-citizens is so widespread that "cheating is pervasive in our elections."

But he offered little evidence for claims of widespread fraud, including a claim in a prime-time television speech on Thursday that 278.000 people without U.S. citizenship were registered to vote.

A new Reuters analysis, based on federal court records, now questions Trump's claim that there is a conspiracy in America in which non-citizens vote in elections.

Court records show that federal prosecutors have charged just 129 people under the federal “alien voting” law, which Congress passed in 1996, Reuters has found. More than two-thirds of those cases — 86 — were filed during Trump’s five-and-a-half years in office. In none of the cases have prosecutors alleged a coordinated effort to influence the election. None of the defendants were charged with being paid to vote. Instead, many of the cases appear to stem from voter confusion, miscommunication with election officials or administrative errors.

One of the people targeted by Trump's crackdown is Dora Damata-Rodriguez. The 72-year-old grandmother, born in Panama, lived in the United States for decades before she voted in the 2016 election. She told Reuters that she hoped her vote would contribute to a better life for her four children and 15 grandchildren, all of whom are American citizens.

"I wasn't trying to sneak in. I believed I was acting within the law," she later told the judge, according to the transcript.

She was wrong. Damata, who entered the United States legally in 1973 with her American husband, was convicted in 2019 in federal court in North Carolina of illegally voting. She had three misdemeanor convictions dating back decades, which the judge ruled were too old to be considered in sentencing for the election violation.

She spent 13 days in jail and was told by immigration authorities that her case was closed. However, the Trump administration reopened her case last year. She was deported to Panama in June.

Damata told a federal judge that she registered to vote at a local elections office using her driver's license, which state officials told Reuters contained a notation that she was not a citizen. She assumed that election officials knew she was not a U.S. citizen and interpreted their acceptance of her registration application as proof that she was eligible to vote.

"I was very happy, because I'm a great patriot, even though I'm not American," she said.

She said she voted for Trump. In an interview, she stated that she saw him as a businessman, not a politician, who would set the country on a better path. She still supports him.

"I like how he cares about America. He will provide America with what it needs," she said.

Her case is one of 73 cases of convictions or pleas to federal noncitizen voting identified by Reuters since 1996. Of the 62 defendants whose immigration status could be determined, 49 were legal permanent residents, like her.

Reuters found that the number of such actions increased sharply at the beginning of Trump's second term.

Over the past 18 months, the Trump administration has initiated at least 39 proceedings over foreign voting, more than any other president at the same stage in office in at least a quarter century, court records show.

The cases are part of a broader law enforcement campaign: U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents have launched election fraud investigations against more than 325 people in at least six states, mostly on suspicion of voting by non-U.S. citizens, according to documents obtained by Reuters through a freedom of information request.

Responding to questions for this article, the White House said that cases of non-citizen voting are "numerous" and that Trump is committed to ensuring that voter rolls are accurate and limited to eligible citizens. Such measures are necessary to protect the integrity of American elections, the White House added.

"Voting by non-citizens is a crime. Anyone who violates the law will be held accountable," said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.

Trump's focus on non-citizen voting is part of a multi-pronged campaign to reshape American elections in ways that the president himself has said could cement Republican power for generations.

The administration has sued more than 20 U.S. states that have refused to turn over confidential voter rolls for federal review. It has weakened federal election security programs designed to detect cyberthreats and foreign influence operations. It has seized ballots and demanded strict restrictions on mail-in voting. This month, it ousted the heads of a federal agency that helps oversee election systems and threatened to prosecute state and local election administrators who allow noncitizens to vote.

Urging Congress to pass the "SAVE America" ​​Act, which would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID when voting, Trump said on July 3 that the law would ensure that Republicans "don't lose elections for the next hundred years."

Critics from both parties say the SAVE law could deny voting rights to new citizens or anyone who does not have easy access to birth certificates and other documents proving citizenship.

Eight election officials and voting rights experts told Reuters that Trump's insistence on non-citizen voting fuels unfounded fears of fraud and could set the stage for a challenge to the results of November's congressional elections.

A June report by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, a voting rights organization, estimated that even a modest error rate in citizenship checks nationwide could lead to tens of thousands of voters being incorrectly labeled as stateless.

Some interlocutors believe the campaign is part of a broader attempt to suppress voter turnout ahead of the November congressional elections, which will decide who controls the US Congress.

"The administration is using a sledgehammer to solve this problem," said Pam Anderson, a Republican candidate for Colorado secretary of state in 2022 and a former election official who served as president of the state's county clerks association.

She said she was "seriously concerned that this will negatively impact turnout."

During his second term, Trump ordered agencies to reexamine old and new non-citizen voting cases, in some situations seeking deportation years after criminal proceedings were completed, as in the Damata case.

However, some experts believe that existing safeguards could limit some aspects of Trump's campaign.

Danielle Lang, an attorney with the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Issues Center, a voting rights organization, said election laws, courts and the decentralized American electoral system, which is run by the states, limit the president's power.

"There are a number of restrictions designed to protect voters," Lang said.

Election officials from both parties say that non-citizens do vote. However, they add that it happens on such a small scale that it does not have a significant impact on election results.

"All the evidence suggests that this happens extremely rarely," Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania's top elections official and a Republican, said in an interview, citing his 15 years of experience in local and state elections.

How mistakes became crimes

Behind Trump's claims of widespread and deliberate fraud lies a different reality: many of the people prosecuted said they believed they were voting legally, according to a Reuters article.

Of the 73 people who were convicted or pleaded guilty to the federal crime of "alien voting," 40 believed they had a legal right to vote, court records and interviews show.

Thirty-two said they were mistakenly registered to vote, that others encouraged them to register, or that election officials assured them they were eligible to vote. Eight said they believed that permanent residents could vote or interpreted successful registration as proof that they could.

Reuters could not determine whether the remaining 33 defendants knowingly broke the law.

Party affiliation could be determined for 34 defendants: 11 were Democrats, nine were Republicans, while 14 were not affiliated with any party. The small number of cases and the variety of party affiliations suggest that they were not part of a coordinated effort to help one party.

Forty-nine of the defendants were lawful permanent residents, and 13 were in the U.S. illegally. The immigration status of the remaining 11 could not be determined.

Reuters attempted to contact all 73 defendants, and spoke to them or their representatives in 39 cases. Almost all requested anonymity, citing fear of further legal repercussions.

The cases were identified by reviewing federal court records and a database maintained by the Federal Judicial Center, a research agency for federal courts. Reuters limited its analysis to federal cases because states rarely bring such cases and apply different criteria.

Of the 129 federal cases brought under the Alien Voting Act, charges have been dismissed in 30 cases, while 26 cases are still pending.

In addition, Reuters found at least seven other non-citizen voting cases brought under the broader election fraud law, six of them in the past year. Five ended in convictions, while two are still pending.

Damata traces her mistake back to September 2016. That month, she registered to vote in North Carolina after watching an online video that she interpreted as a message that immigrants could legally vote. Reuters was unable to identify the video.

Two years later, she was arrested after North Carolina officials, during a check of voter rolls, determined that she had voted even though she was not a citizen.

She was convicted in 2019 after pleading guilty, spending nearly two weeks in jail and being fined $500. At sentencing, she claimed she believed she had the right to vote, although the judge said she likely knew she could not legally vote.

The case seemed to be closed.

But in December 2025, immigration authorities stopped Damata during passport control at Houston airport as she was preparing to travel to Europe for a vacation. After discovering her 2019 conviction for voting without citizenship, they placed her in custody and initiated deportation proceedings as part of Trump's crackdown on immigration.

While in custody in Texas, she prepared to argue her case at a hearing scheduled for April 9. However, when that day arrived, she learned that the court had already ordered her removal from the country. In June, she was deported to Panama.

"I feel like I was executed in Texas," she said by phone from a small town in Panama's Chiriqui province, where she now lives.

Responding to questions about her case, the Department of Homeland Security stated that she was a "criminal illegal alien" who entered the U.S. illegally through Mexico in 2009.

However, court records from her 2019 election case show that she was a lawful permanent resident. Her lawyer told the court that she had lived legally in the United States for more than four decades, and a photo of her green card that she shared with Reuters shows that she obtained permanent resident status in 1973 as the wife of a U.S. citizen.

The statement from the Ministry of Homeland Security also stated that she had a criminal record that included alien smuggling, public order violations, and driving under the influence of alcohol.

But federal and state court records do not show that she was ever convicted or prosecuted for those offenses. Documents reviewed by Reuters show three earlier misdemeanor convictions — shoplifting in 1982, driving without a license in 1995 and theft in 1997 — that the judge in her election case ruled were too old to be considered in sentencing.

After Reuters presented findings to the Ministry of Homeland Security that contradicted its claims, the agency repeated the accusations but offered no evidence.

The circumstances that led some non-citizens to vote often began in quite ordinary situations: a conversation with a county clerk, a voter registration drive, or a misunderstanding that went uncorrected for years.

A man told a judge that a Florida Department of Motor Vehicles officer incorrectly informed him that he could vote because he was married to a U.S. citizen.

Another person testified that the activist persuaded her to register even after she told him she was not a citizen, stating that it could help her in the process of obtaining citizenship.

At least three said in court documents that they used state-issued identification to register and were not told they were ineligible to vote. They later voted in federal elections and were fined years later.

The defendants hailed from at least 33 countries, including Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Poland, Israel, Nigeria and Canada.

A 66-year-old Ohio man, who immigrated from Germany as a child and never became a U.S. citizen, told Reuters that he registered to vote several years ago while getting license plates at a Bureau of Motor Vehicles office near Cleveland.

When he said he was not eligible to vote, the officer ignored it and told him he could register as long as he had a standard identification document, he recalled.

He then voted in 12 elections between 2009 and 2024. He also requested an absentee ballot in the 2020 Ohio Republican primary, voter registration records show.

"I had no idea what the hell I was signing up for," said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the current immigration crackdown.

An ever-widening network

Under Trump, federal law enforcement agencies have been ordered to prioritize prosecutions and deportations for noncitizen voting, according to executive orders, public statements by senior officials and an internal Department of Homeland Security memo.

Some Republican-controlled states, such as Ohio and Texas – which will hold tight US Senate races this year – are enthusiastically participating in these efforts.

In Ohio, the office of Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Trump supporter, began working with Department of Homeland Security agents last year to look for election fraud in the state.

In October, LaRose forwarded the names of 167 alleged non-citizen voters to the U.S. Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution.

Since then, Department of Homeland Security agents have requested voter registration records in Ohio for at least 308 people, according to emails sent by agents to local election boards and reviewed by Reuters.

Most of them – 214 of them – had never voted, electoral records show. Of the others, 64 people voted, and 20 tried to vote but had their ballots rejected. Reuters was unable to determine the voting history of ten others.

The Department of Homeland Security has questioned at least 12 people whose records it sought in Ohio, including lawful permanent residents and naturalized citizens, and has filed deportation proceedings against at least two of them this year, two Ohio immigration attorneys said.

LaRose's office said in a statement that it was "very proud" of its activities regarding voter registration.

"We work with law enforcement every day to hold accountable those who attempt to cheat the system, including non-citizens who vote illegally," the statement said.

In Texas, at least five counties have received subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security or other requests for voter records, according to interviews with election officials, voter records and emails from local officials and Department agents obtained through freedom of information requests.

A Department of Homeland Security agent told Roxanne Stinson, the elections administrator of heavily Republican Lubbock County, that the agency planned to request voter records from election offices across Texas, Stinson said in an interview.

She declined to comment further or reveal how many voters were covered by the subpoenas her office received this year.

In Webb County, Texas, on the border with Mexico, Election Administrator Jose Luis Castillo said that since April, the Department of Homeland Security has sought information on ten people suspected of voting without being citizens.

Only one of them appears to have actually voted, he said – once, in 2014, after being mistakenly registered at a driver's license office.

Castillo questioned the value of such a search.

"We're not finding what they think is there," he said,

In an interview, he said that he is not a member of any party.

In Massachusetts, a check of voter rolls conducted by the Department of Homeland Security identified a Canadian citizen who lived in that state and voted in the Democratic primary, as well as other federal, state and local elections since 2008.

However, state officials had already investigated the case and filed a report in April, before the Justice Department charged the man in May with voting as a foreigner, following a joint investigation with the Department of Homeland Security.

Court records show that federal agents have been searching voter registration records in other Massachusetts communities for additional suspected non-citizens. The Canadian and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

William Galvin, the Democratic secretary of state for Massachusetts, said in an interview that he supports prosecuting noncitizens who vote but is skeptical of using federal investigative power on such a large scale.

"If you're going to search through five million voters' records just for the chance of finding one non-citizen, is that a good allocation of resources?" he said.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about its operations in Ohio, Texas and Massachusetts.

Violation of the 1996 law that criminalized "alien voting" – 18 USC 611 – is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $100.000.

However, penalties have historically been mild, often fines or probation. Judges in criminal cases usually do not have the power to order deportation. Removal from the country is initiated in a separate proceeding by immigration authorities.

Although Trump often cites cases of non-citizen voting as evidence of fraud, legal experts say the crime is different from fraud in the ordinary sense of the word.

Fraud usually involves intentional deception. However, under federal law, prosecutors only need to prove that a person was not a citizen and voted. They do not have to prove that the person intended to deceive election officials or knowingly violated the law.

"That's misleading. Fraud is not an element of that crime," University of Idaho Law School professor Benjamin Cover said of equating noncitizen voting with fraud.

Wrongly marked voters

This calculation also includes an unknown number of legitimate voters.

To find people suspected of voting without being citizens, federal investigators relied heavily on a national database called the Systematic Alien Entitlement Screening, known as SAVE.

The system was established in 1986 to verify the immigration status of people applying for government assistance, such as food and housing assistance.

The Trump administration expanded SAVE last year, adding new data sources and encouraging states to use it for mass voter registration checks.

Justice Department lawyers acknowledged in court that the system could misidentify some naturalized U.S. citizens, but argued that the risk was too small to justify halting its use.

At least 18 states under Republican administration have adopted the modified system.

However, a federal judge in Washington in June banned its use for voter verification, ruling that the changes made the system less accurate and increased the risk that eligible voters would be illegally removed.

A federal court ruling in Florida this month ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore the system to four Republican-controlled states. The opposing rulings have not yet been reconciled.

Texas last year screened nearly 19 million registered voters through the SAVE system and identified 2.724 people in 177 counties who state officials said needed to prove citizenship.

The Secretary of State ordered counties to notify those voters and give them 30 days to provide documentation or their registration will be suspended.

Data collected by the Texas Association of County Election Officials from 40 counties showed that by May, about 100 people had submitted proof of citizenship, while more than 900 had not responded and had their registrations suspended.

Reuters was unable to determine whether any non-citizens were among those suspended.

The Texas Secretary of State's office said counties are responsible for verifying voters marked by the SAVE system and that many are still evaluating the data.

In Indiana, officials last year identified 1.611 people who claimed they were not citizens when they obtained driver's licenses or other state identification documents. They were given 30 days to prove they were eligible to vote or be removed from the voter rolls.

That group represented a very small portion – 0,03 percent – ​​of Indiana's 4,8 million registered voters in 2024, and many of them, according to Reuters findings, were naturalized U.S. citizens.

The office of Republican Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales did not respond to a request for comment.

One of those people was Lucinda Delgado, a 39-year-old mother of three from Indianapolis.

She immigrated from the Dominican Republic in 1993, when she was seven years old, became a citizen in 2021, and registered to vote in 2025. Under Indiana law, voters do not register as supporters of a particular party.

In March, after receiving a letter from the local election board requiring her to prove her citizenship within 30 days, she sent a copy of her naturalization certificate.

Delgado has remained on the voter list and has not yet decided who she will support in the November elections.

Still, she is concerned about older voters and other people who might have difficulty navigating the procedure or quickly finding the documents needed to prove they are eligible to vote.

"They will never be able to vote," she said.