Federal agents arrested a Bahamian green card holder in Georgia after an investigation revealed he voted illegally in the 2020 election, the latest in a string of noncitizen voter fraud cases pursued by the Trump administration.

Homeland Security Investigations agents out of the Atlanta field office arrested Anthony Tyrone Higgs on September 3 in Decatur, Georgia, and placed him into deportation proceedings. Higgs, a lawful permanent resident who entered the United States in October 1976 during President Gerald Ford's administration, now sits in the custody of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations division while the Trump DHS moves to strip his immigration status entirely.

The case drew sharp responses from both the White House and DHS leadership. Fox News Digital reported that White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis provided an exclusive statement on Friday framing the arrest as part of a broader enforcement push against noncitizen voting.

Bis did not hold back about the administration's position on Higgs or anyone else caught casting a ballot they had no legal right to cast:

"This alien was a guest in our country who forfeited his right to be in the U.S. when he committed these violent crimes and voted in the 2020 election."

She added a warning aimed well beyond this single case:

"Any noncitizens who vote illegally in our elections will be arrested and removed. American elections are only for Americans."

Higgs's rap sheet goes far beyond the ballot box

The illegal vote alone would have been enough to trigger deportation proceedings. But DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin made clear that Higgs's problems with American law run much deeper than one fraudulent ballot.

Mullin laid out a criminal history that reads like a catalog of violent offenses:

"This criminal alien from the Bahamas has a rap sheet for multiple violent crimes, including armed robbery, domestic violence, and assault on a police officer."

Beyond those offenses, DHS listed resisting arrest, two counts of grand larceny, and two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime on Higgs's record. The information provided does not specify whether each offense resulted in a conviction or remains at the charge level, but the breadth of the record speaks for itself.

Mullin credited the agents who built the case and made the arrest. "Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of ICE, this criminal will be removed from our country and can never interfere in our elections again," he said.

The administration has ramped up deportation operations across the country, and the Higgs case fits squarely into that larger enforcement posture, one that pairs immigration consequences with election integrity enforcement.

A pattern of noncitizen voting cases stretching across multiple states

Higgs is not an isolated example. DHS has cited a growing list of noncitizens caught casting illegal ballots in American elections, and the cases span years, states, and countries of origin.

In August, a Colombian illegal immigrant named Carlos Jaramillo-Grajales was sentenced to three years in federal prison following an ICE investigation. Jaramillo-Grajales pleaded guilty after authorities discovered he had committed identity theft to vote illegally in U.S. elections for more than two decades. Gregory Kehoe, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, issued a statement after the sentencing that left no room for ambiguity about the government's posture.

"Federal immigration laws serve to safeguard our nation's borders and protect the integrity of our government. Those who seek to circumvent, exploit, or break these laws will be prosecuted fully."

Twenty years of fraudulent ballots. That is not a mistake on a registration form. That is a sustained, deliberate effort to influence American elections by someone with no legal right to participate in them.

Then there is Mahady Sacko, a Mauritanian national arrested by a joint ICE-FBI operation in Philadelphia. Sacko faces voter fraud charges after allegedly casting illegal ballots multiple times going back to 2008. His case carries an additional layer of failure by the system itself: an immigration board upheld his removal order back in 2002. DHS says he exhausted all appeals. Yet he remained in the country for years afterward, long enough to allegedly vote in election after election.

That timeline deserves a second look. A foreign national ordered removed in 2002, with all appeals exhausted, was still living in the United States and allegedly voting as recently as 2008 or later. The previous administration's approach to immigration enforcement, including efforts to shield millions of noncitizens from removal, left cases like Sacko's to fester.

From New Jersey to Louisiana, the cases keep surfacing

DHS also flagged two additional cases that remain less detailed but equally telling. A Slovakian national was found to have voted illegally in the 2022 midterm elections in New Jersey. An Australian national allegedly cast illegal ballots in Louisiana in both 2022 and 2024. Neither individual's name has been released publicly in the available reporting, and their current legal status remains unclear.

Taken together, the cases involve nationals from the Bahamas, Colombia, Mauritania, Slovakia, and Australia, five countries, multiple states, and elections spanning from at least 2008 through 2024. The common thread is simple: noncitizens who had no legal right to vote did so anyway, in some cases for years, without detection or consequence until now.

Some elected officials have resisted the very enforcement mechanisms that produced these arrests. Debates over whether to deport illegal immigrants who already have court orders against them have exposed sharp divides between the administration and its critics.

The Trump Justice Department has also pursued novel legal tools in related areas. The DOJ filed the first-ever Alien Terrorist Removal Court case to deport an Afghan woman connected to an Election Day 2024 plot, a signal that the administration views election security and immigration enforcement as inseparable priorities.

Nearly fifty years in America, and this is the result

Higgs entered the United States lawfully nearly half a century ago. He held a green card. He had every legal avenue available to pursue citizenship through proper channels if he wanted the right to vote. He did not take that path. Instead, according to DHS, he accumulated a violent criminal record and cast a ballot he was never entitled to cast.

Several questions remain unanswered. It is unclear whether Higgs faces formal criminal charges related to the illegal vote itself or whether the government is pursuing this solely as an immigration matter. HSI has not disclosed the investigative methods that led agents to identify his fraudulent ballot. And Higgs has not made any public statement or entered a plea in response to the allegations.

What is clear is that the administration is treating noncitizen voting not as a theoretical concern but as an enforcement priority backed by arrests, prosecutions, and deportation orders.

If American elections are going to mean anything, they have to belong to Americans, and the people who violated that principle are finally finding out that the rules apply to them, too.