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State and federal officials on Tuesday announced charges against seven people accused of voting in federal elections while not eligible citizens.
The Texas Secretary of State’s Office separately said it had referred 117 cases of potential noncitizen voting to the Texas Attorney General’s Office for investigation. It also confirmed that 578 other registered voters flagged last year as potential noncitizens by a federal database are, in fact, U.S. citizens.
The criminal charges announced Tuesday, all in Tarrant County, are the result of a collaboration between the Texas Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, the FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to a press release from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican. Six of the accused were indicted last week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas said, and the seventh person was charged in a criminal complaint.
Those charged include Mexican citizen Carlos Salas Barrios, who was arrested for voting in the 2024 election, though his ballot was ultimately rejected, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice. Also charged was Nigerian national Joshua Nmelichukwu Akpom, who was arrested for making false statements in relation to naturalization, according to the release. Akpom voted illegally in the 2018 general election, but was not charged in relation to that due to the statute of limitations, according to the U.S. Department of Justice statement.
Nigerian national Helen Mayen Adams, Indian citizen Khalwinder Singh Bhengura, Mexican citizen Moises Anwar Arellano-Alba, Democratic Republic of the Congo national Celestin Katubadi, and Mexican citizen Rocio Thrasher were all charged with illegally voting in the 2024 election and false statements of citizenship to register to vote. Katubadi cast a provisional ballot that was ultimately rejected, the U.S. Department of Justice statement said.
Paxton’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, and no additional details were immediately available.
Votebeat on Tuesday could not immediately find reliable contact information for the people charged.
There are more than 18 million registered voters in Texas, and more than 11 million cast ballots in the November 2024 general election. Seven people make up a tiny fraction of that number.
Nonetheless, the charges come as President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to crack down on what it has asserted is an increase of noncitizens registered to vote in the country. His administration has reportedly surged resources into investigations connected to potential cases of voter fraud and noncitizen voting.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department charged five people in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and New Jersey with voting-related crimes.
State confirms citizenship for more than 500 flagged voters
In a separate news release Tuesday, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office said it had referred 117 potential cases of noncitizen voting to the Office of the Attorney General for investigation. The cases are not tied to a specific election. The referrals are part of “a larger update on Texas’ ongoing efforts to review voter citizenship ahead of the Nov. 3 election,” the news release said.
Texas officials last October sent counties a list of 2,724 potential noncitizens generated by checking the state’s voter roll of more than 18 million registered voters against a federal program used to verify citizenship, known as SAVE.
Soon after the state transmitted the names, counties began to investigate the flagged registrants, and quickly confirmed that at least some were citizens. In addition, county officials found that hundreds of the flagged voters had registered through the state Department of Public Safety, which requires proof of citizenship, such as a passport, and keeps copies of such documents on file.
The Texas Secretary of State’s Office told Votebeat and the Texas Tribune that it did not initially check the registrants flagged as potential noncitizens against DPS records before sending the list to county election officials to investigate. That decision prompted a March lawsuit from voting rights groups and some Texas voters who said the state should have done so. The lawsuit is still pending in federal court.
In May, state officials confirmed they would check the DPS records. In July, Christina Adkins, the state elections director, told county officials the state had been able to confirm some of the flagged voters were citizens, and said county officials should immediately reinstate any incorrectly flagged voters who had been removed from the voter roll.
The Tuesday news release said officials were able to confirm citizenship for 578 voters, and of those, 506 were flagged because their passport information was not added to the federal SAVE program until after Texas had initially checked its list.
County voter registrars in Texas received a directive to reinstate the incorrectly flagged voters Tuesday, Kristin Miles, president of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said in a statement. Miles said the registrars “are grateful that due diligence performed at the state level has brought resolution for impacted voters.”
Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. Natalia is based in Corpus Christi. Contact her at ncontreras@votebeat.org.
