On Oct. 5, Homeland Security Investigations in Philadelphia also arrested Portuguese national and lawful permanent resident Paulo Jorge Silva on a charge of voting as an alien in the November 2024 election. Those arrests follow two separate Justice Department announcements this month charging 16 individuals each across multiple states with illegal noncitizen voting, false claims of US citizenship and related election offenses.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department has charged more than 90 people with election fraud during the Trump administration, though roughly 57 million ballots were cast in this year's midterm primaries alone. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin added that investigators are reviewing more than 300,000 leads and managing 1,620 open cases as the administration collects voter logs from 47 states.