By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-16 10:31:28 | Updated at 2026-10-16 11:13:51
46 minutes ago
A permanent resident from Cuba has been arrested by authorities for allegedly voting illegally in U.S. elections for roughly two decades.
The Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrested Andres Garcia on Oct. 6 after charging him with two counts of voting by an immigrant in the November 2022 and November 2024 elections, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in an Oct. 14 statement.
In 2004, before receiving his permanent residency status, Garcia allegedly registered to vote in Cass County, Missouri, and has since then cast votes in at least 15 elections, including at least 13 federal elections, over a span of 20 years.
Garcia, 64, is alleged to have registered to vote despite knowing he was not a U.S. citizen. He allegedly entered the United States illegally in 1969 and applied for lawful permanent residency status in 2009, which was approved under the Obama administration the same year.
“Now, thanks to the hardworking men and women of HSI and our partners at the Department of Justice, this alien will have to answer for repeatedly interfering in our elections,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in the statement.
“Let this be a message to any non-citizens out there who are thinking about voting in our elections: If you illegally vote, we will arrest you, and you will be charged. Only American citizens should be electing American leaders.”
Title 18 of the U.S. Code Section 611 clarifies that it is generally
unlawfulfor an immigrant to vote in an election held to select a candidate for the office of president, vice president, presidential elector, member of the Senate or House of Representatives, delegate from the District of Columbia, or resident commissioner.
The Epoch Times reached out to Garcia’s legal representative for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
The issue of potential voter fraud was highlighted by the Census Bureau in an Aug. 18
reportthat examined noncitizen voting in the November 2020 general election.
Out of almost 160 million voters who cast ballots in the election, the bureau “determined with high confidence that over 128 million of these voter records represented citizens, and that over 24,000 of these voter records represented noncitizens at the time of the election,” the report said, adding that more than 32 million voter records were yet to be analyzed.
Multiple individuals have been charged over illegal voting allegations in recent months.
In September, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that five individuals were charged in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and New Jersey for crimes related to voting illegally in the 2022 or 2024 elections. In June, three noncitizens pleaded guilty to casting illegal votes in federal elections.
The Trump administration has faced challenges in its push to ensure voter integrity. On Oct. 9, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
ruledagainst the DOJ in a case where the department sought lists of registered voters from various states.
The DOJ sought to compare the information received against the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to identify people who had registered to vote despite being noncitizens, in which case the department would request that states purge such individuals from voter rolls.
In the ruling, Sooknanan said that the policy represented “the federal government’s attempt to decide who gets to vote.” However, “Congress has left that authority where our Constitution has always placed it: with the states,” the judge said.
The DOJ “cannot run roughshod over longstanding laws that were carefully crafted to protect the rights of the American people,” Sooknanan said.
In an Oct. 14 statement, the office of California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber said that the DOJ had asked her office to review a list of people the federal government believed were likely to be noncitizens.
Weber said in the statement that DOJ efforts to gain access to state voter data and purge voter rolls “serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in our elections.”
The Oct. 13 DOJ letter sent to Weber asked to determine whether any name on the list was a citizen, noting that this would protect the integrity of votes cast by American voters.
“The United States hopes that you share our commitment to ensure that only American citizens participate in our federal elections. Allowing noncitizens to vote cancels citizen votes,” the letter said.
