Texas voter fraud crackdown leads to Homeland Security arrests of non-citizens
Homeland Security Investigations agents have arrested seven noncitizens in North Texas as part of a major Texas voter fraud crackdown focused on illegal voting. U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said authorities will prosecute people who misrepresent their citizenship to federal officials in order to cast ballots. The arrests are part of a broader federal effort to review voter rolls and investigate potentially fraudulent registrations ahead of upcoming federal elections.
In a separate case, a Nigerian woman who lives in Massachusetts as a lawful permanent resident allegedly voted in at least two elections after falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen, authorities said.
Gladys Adaeze Okafor, 56, was charged by the Justice Department with unlawfully voting as an alien. Prosecutors allege she cast ballots in the 2024 presidential primary and the 2022 midterm elections despite not being a U.S. citizen.
Okafor is expected to appear Wednesday in federal court in Boston.
Gladys Adaeze Okafor, 56, faces charges for allegedly voting in U.S. elections despite not being a citizen. Okafor, a Nigerian national, lives in Massachusetts as a lawful permanent resident, authorities said. (Getty Images; Justice Department)
Federal prosecutors allege that Okafor repeatedly misrepresented her citizenship on official documents signed under penalty of perjury so she could register and vote.
In July 2022, she filed a voter registration application and signed a certification stating that she was a U.S. citizen, authorities said. The City of Lynn later approved her registration.
Okafor submitted a second voter registration card in October 2023, again checking a box affirming that she was an American citizen, prosecutors said. Court documents state that she subsequently voted in the 2024 presidential primary.
Okafor was born in Nigeria and became a lawful permanent resident in December 2022. She is not a U.S. citizen and has never applied for citizenship, prosecutors said.
If convicted, she could receive up to one year in prison and a fine of as much as $10,000.
The case follows the indictment of seven noncitizens in Texas as part of an election integrity investigation. Earlier this month, the Justice Department also charged five people in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin in cases involving alleged illegal voting or fraudulent voter registration during the 2022 and 2024 elections.
