US Charges Two Nigerians Over Alleged Illegal Voting, False Citizenship Claims
The United States Department of Justice has charged two Nigerian nationals and 61 other foreign citizens with alleged illegal voting, fraudulent voter registration and making false claims of American citizenship in connection with federal elections.
The 63 individuals were charged across several federal judicial districts in an announcement made on Monday as part of an ongoing crackdown on alleged election-related offences.
The Nigerians were identified as Mohammed Omar Hassan, 61, and Michael Agah, 74. Both are lawful permanent residents of the United States.
According to the Justice Department, Hassan was charged in the Southern District of Texas with voting by a non-US citizen. He allegedly voted in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Agah, who was charged in the Western District of North Carolina, faces allegations of voting by a non-US citizen and falsely claiming American citizenship to vote. Prosecutors allege that he declared himself a US citizen on an Authorization to Vote Form before voting in a federal election on November 5, 2024.
The charges form part of a wider enforcement campaign under President Donald Trump’s administration. Attorney General Todd Blanche described the latest announcement as the largest surge of voter-fraud arrests since Trump returned to office.
“Today’s announcement marks the largest surge of voter-fraud arrests since President Trump returned to office,” Blanche said, alleging that foreign nationals had taken advantage of public trust and violated laws governing American elections.
The Justice Department said it had charged 195 non-US citizens across 25 states with illegal voting and voter registration offences in the preceding nine weeks. This brought the total number of people charged with election-related voting fraud offences since the beginning of the administration to 239, according to the department.
The latest cases come less than two months after three other Nigerians were charged alongside 13 foreign nationals over alleged election-related offences. The Nigerians were identified as Gladys Adaeze Okafor, 56; Helen Sayen Adams, 67; and Joshua Nmelichukwu Akpom, 27. Okafor and Adams were accused of falsely claiming US citizenship to register and vote, while Akpom was charged with making false statements in connection with his naturalisation application.
The Justice Department said the latest cases involved defendants from several countries, including Mexico, Jamaica, Canada, the Philippines, India, Colombia and the United Kingdom. It stressed that complaints, indictments and informations contain allegations, and that all defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt in court.