Federal prosecutors in Houston have charged five noncitizens with voting illegally in past elections, accusing them of casting ballots in 2022 and 2024 races despite being barred from doing so under U.S. law. The defendants include a 61-year-old Houston resident, a 33-year-old La Porte man, and three others from the Rio Grande Valley region, each facing charges tied to voting, falsely claiming citizenship, or lying on immigration paperwork.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas announced the charges, saying the five noncitizens face federal counts related to allegedly voting illegally, lying on immigration documents, or falsely claiming U.S. citizenship, according to Click2Houston. The defendants are citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, and Mexico. A U.S. Department of Justice statement confirms that five foreigners were charged with election-integrity crimes, with Ali Khan and Mohammed Omar Hassan each charged in Houston with voting by an alien in a federal election, while Jose Vasquez-Mendoza and Diego Benavides Rodriguez were charged out of the Brownsville and Laredo offices, respectively.
Who Is Facing Charges
Ali Khan is a 33-year-old citizen of Trinidad and Tobago living in La Porte who is also a DACA recipient, per the Click2Houston report. He is notable among the group as the only defendant who is in the country illegally; the remaining four defendants are or were lawful permanent residents who are not U.S. citizens. Mohammed Omar Hassan is a 61-year-old Houston resident and Nigerian citizen, while Diego Benavides Rodriguez is a 29-year-old Mexican citizen from Laredo.
Jose Vasquez-Mendoza, a 51-year-old Mexican citizen, lives in Port Isabel, and Karen Hinojosa-Martinez is also among the defendants.
Voting Allegations
The charges include allegations of illegal voting.
Some of the charges also involve alleged false claims of U.S. citizenship or lies on immigration documents.
Potential Penalties
Khan, Hassan, and Vasquez-Mendoza each face up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine on the illegal voting charges. Rodriguez faces that same one-year, $10,000 penalty on his illegal voting charge, plus up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship. Hinojosa-Martinez faces the same potential five-year term and $250,000 fine on her charge of lying on immigration documents, the report states.
Officials React
U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz said the cases reflect his office's commitment to protecting the electoral process. “Free, fair, and honest elections — unmarred by fraud, errors, or illegality — are fundamental to a healthy constitutional republic,” Reitz said, per the outlet's report.
John A. Pasciucco, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio, echoed that message. “Voting in U.S. elections is a right reserved for U.S. citizens, and Homeland Security Investigations will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to investigate allegations of unlawful voting,” Pasciucco said, adding that his agency will continue pursuing cases like these. The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations conducted the probe, with assistance from the Texas Attorney General's Office and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
How Common Are These Cases
Nationally, prosecutions for noncitizen voting remain relatively rare. An analysis by The New York Times found that state and federal charges for noncitizen voting never exceeded 25 people in any state in a recent election, and that such voting has been too infrequent to have changed the outcome of any election. The votes tied to reported 2024 general-election cases represented no more than 0.0002 percent of ballots cast in each affected state.
The Times analysis also found that since 2025, the current administration has charged 131 people federally with illegally registering or voting as noncitizens, compared with 13 people charged during the Biden administration. Of those more recent federal cases, 25 people have been found guilty or pleaded guilty, two were acquitted, and four had charges dropped or dismissed. The Heritage Foundation, cited in the same analysis, identified 71 criminal convictions nationwide for noncitizen voting between 2000 and 2025 — a span of roughly a quarter century.
