Homeland Security Investigations arrested an Indian national for allegedly voting illegally in Minnesota’s 2024 election, part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on non-citizen ballots.
The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that agents with Homeland Security Investigations took Mukeshkumar Somabhai Chaudhari into custody on charges tied to the 2024 election. Just the News reported he faces one count of false information in voting and one count of making a false claim of citizenship to register to vote.
The alleged illegal ballot was cast in Minnesota. The charges carry a maximum of five years in prison. HSI’s St. Paul office led the case.
Federal officials framed the arrest as enforcement of a basic rule: only U.S. citizens may vote. The case also landed amid a wider Justice Department push against non-citizens on state voter rolls, including a fresh lawsuit against California.
Chaudhari, also referred to in reporting as Choudhari, is described as an Indian national and non-citizen. DHS said he allegedly voted illegally in Minnesota and falsely claimed U.S. citizenship to get on the rolls. Specific statutes, a docket number, and the precise arrest site were not detailed in the announcement.
HSI St. Paul Special Agent in Charge Travis Pickard stressed the legal line and the agency’s role.
"Voting is reserved for U.S. citizens, and falsely claiming citizenship to cast a ballot is a serious crime."
Pickard continued:
"HSI has the experience and authority to investigate these cases, and we take that responsibility seriously. We will continue working with our law enforcement partners to protect the integrity of our election systems."
That message fits a broader federal pattern. In related cases, the DOJ has charged noncitizens across multiple states for alleged illegal voting, treating false citizenship claims as election crimes rather than paperwork errors.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin used the arrest to put non-citizens on notice and to defend citizen-only elections.
"Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences, including criminal charges and deportation."
He added:
"Under President Trump’s leadership, this administration will never allow the votes of American citizens to be cancelled out by non-citizens illegally voting in our elections. Only American citizens should be electing American leaders."
The language is blunt by design. Deportation sits alongside criminal charges as a stated consequence. Officials are not treating illegal voting as a technical glitch.
Similar federal actions have already reached larger groups of foreign nationals. One recent wave saw the DOJ charge dozens of foreign nationals with illegal voting offenses ahead of national elections, underscoring that single-case arrests are not isolated.
The Minnesota arrest did not arrive in a vacuum. On Thursday, the Department of Justice sued California for alleged “state-facilitated voter fraud” after identifying roughly 20,000 likely noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. That suit sits outside the Chaudhari charges but shows the same enforcement priority: keep non-citizens off the rolls and prosecute those who cast illegal ballots.
Readers following the California fight can find more in coverage of how the Justice Department sued California over suspected noncitizens left on voter lists. The numbers there dwarf a single Minnesota arrest, yet both tracks aim at the same integrity gap.
Minnesota itself has drawn federal attention lately. The state leans Democratic and has faced scrutiny over large-scale public fraud revelations, often linked in reporting to its Somali expatriate community. The Chaudhari case is a separate illegal-voting allegation, not a fraud-scheme prosecution, but it adds to the list of federal actions inside the state.
Election workers elsewhere have also faced federal pressure. In California, the DOJ has warned election workers they can face charges for counting noncitizen ballots, closing another path for illegal votes to be treated as routine.
The public file so far is thin on mechanics. DHS and HSI announced the arrest and the two counts. They did not release a full charging narrative, court docket details, or a day-by-day account of how Chaudhari allegedly registered and voted. Conviction is not claimed, only arrest and charges. Name spelling varies slightly across the same report. Those gaps matter for precision, not for the core allegation federal agents chose to bring.
Still, the pattern is hard to miss. Another set of cases saw the DOJ charge defendants after illegal immigrants and noncitizens cast ballots, pairing individual prosecutions with systemic clean-up of the rolls. Minnesota’s case fits that dual track.
Citizen-only elections are not a partisan preference. They are the law. When a non-citizen allegedly claims citizenship to register and vote, the remedy is investigation, arrest, charges, and, if proved, prison time and removal, not a shrug and a policy debate.
American ballots belong to American citizens. Enforcing that line is how elections stay honest.
