Federal agents on Monday, November 2 — the day before Americans vote in the 2026 midterm elections — arrested Benito Covarrubias Iniguez, 64, of Winder, Georgia, and he appeared the same day before U.S. Magistrate Judge Anna W. Howard in Gainesville on a federal charge of making a false claim of U.S. citizenship in order to vote, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced. Prosecutors allege that Iniguez, a citizen of Mexico from Jalisco who federal officials say is in the United States illegally, obtained a fraudulent U.S. passport in another person's name a quarter-century ago, used that identity to get a Georgia driver's license and register to vote, and then voted in the November 5, 2024 general election. He is the fourth noncitizen charged since September 2026 with voting in federal elections in the Northern District of Georgia. The charges are allegations only; Iniguez is presumed innocent, and the government must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.

Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Georgia, Nov 2, 2026

“Votes of non-citizens impersonating Americans undermine the integrity of our cherished democratic process and diminish public confidence in our election results,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. “This case and the many others brought in this district and around the country reinforce that non-citizens who vote in federal elections will be found, arrested, and prosecuted.” Ryan McSeveney, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service Miami Field Office, which oversees the Southeast, said protecting the integrity of U.S. elections “requires enforcing the laws that govern who may lawfully participate,” and that DSS would keep working with its partners to investigate passport fraud and false claims of citizenship wherever they occur. The Diplomatic Security Service investigated this case, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Pearce is prosecuting it.

A passport in a Puerto Rico-born citizen's name, dating to 2000

According to the charges and other information presented in court, as summarised by the U.S. Attorney's Office: in 2000, after entering the United States from Mexico, Iniguez fraudulently obtained a passport in the name of a U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico. Using that fraudulent identity, he later obtained a Georgia driver's license, registered to vote, and voted in the November 5, 2024 general election — the presidential election between Donald Trump and the Democratic ticket. A criminal complaint charging him with making a false claim of U.S. citizenship in order to vote in a federal election was filed on October 16, 2026. Federal agents arrested him earlier on Monday, and he made his first appearance the same day. The release does not allege that he voted, or attempted to vote, in the 2026 midterms being decided on Tuesday.

The three north Georgia cases that came before his

Iniguez is the fourth such case in the district in two months, and the three earlier ones show the range of conduct prosecutors are pursuing. Pauline Lewis, 65, of Dawsonville, is alleged to have voted by absentee ballot in three federal elections — November 5, 2024, January 5, 2021 and November 3, 2020. Lewis is allegedly a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda who entered the United States on a student visa in 1979, remained in the country, and never applied to become a U.S. citizen; she appeared in federal court on September 18, 2026, after her arrest on a complaint charging voting as a non-citizen. Gabriel Covarrubias, 44, of Lawrenceville, is alleged to have voted in person using a false name in the November 5, 2024 election; prosecutors say the Mexican citizen falsely claimed in a March 2023 U.S. passport application that he had a different name and was born in Puerto Rico, and on September 1, 2026, he waived indictment and was charged by criminal information with making a false statement in a passport application and voting as a non-citizen. Analiea Milliscent Eccles, 43, of Morrow, is alleged to have voted nine times between 2008 and 2024; prosecutors say the Venezuelan citizen entered on a temporary visitor visa in 1991, remained, received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status in 2013, sought to renew it this year, but has never applied to become a citizen. She appeared in court on September 14, 2026, on a complaint charging voting as a non-citizen and making a false claim of citizenship to vote. All four defendants are presumed innocent unless convicted.

Announced on a day the Justice Department charged 63 people nationwide

The Georgia arrest was one piece of a much larger announcement the same day. The Justice Department's Office of Public Affairs said Monday that charges had been brought involving 63 individuals, including four people described as illegal aliens, in connection with illegal voting, fraudulent voter registration and related election crimes across the country — cases spanning the Southern District of Texas, Maryland, three districts in North Carolina, three in Tennessee, New Jersey, Wisconsin, the Northern District of New York and Georgia, among others. “Today's announcement marks the largest surge of voter-fraud arrests since President Trump returned to office,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche. “These foreign nationals allegedly took advantage of the trust of the American people and flouted the laws that govern our nation's elections. This Department of Justice will continue investigating and prosecuting voter fraud to restore confidence in our electoral system.” The department said that in the last nine weeks alone it has charged 195 noncitizens across 25 states with illegal voting and registration offences, and 239 people with voting-fraud-related offences since the beginning of the administration. Most of the people in Monday's national list are lawful permanent residents — green-card holders, who may live and work in the United States permanently but are not citizens and may not register or vote in federal elections.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Nov 2, 2026

Part of the Homeland Security Task Force programme

The U.S. Attorney's Office said these prosecutions are part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” — a whole-of-government partnership aimed at cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organisations and human-smuggling and trafficking rings, which also directs federal tools at prosecuting and removing violent noncitizens. The Atlanta Wilhelm HSTF comprises agents and officers from ATF, the Coast Guard Investigative Service, DEA, FBI, ICE Homeland Security Investigations, IRS Criminal Investigation, the Labor Department's inspector general, the Diplomatic Security Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Postal Inspection Service and the U.S. Secret Service, as well as state and local agencies, with prosecutions led by the Northern District of Georgia. In this case, the investigating agency was the Diplomatic Security Service — the State Department's law-enforcement arm, which handles passport fraud.

What happens next

Iniguez's Monday appearance was a first appearance on a complaint, not a trial. The case now moves through the ordinary federal steps in the Northern District of Georgia: the government must present the case to a grand jury or otherwise proceed to formal charges, the defence will have the opportunity to contest the passport and voting records at the heart of the allegation, and no trial date was announced in either Justice Department release. The burden remains the government's, beyond a reasonable doubt. For voters heading to Georgia polls on Tuesday, the immediate takeaway is narrower than the politics around the announcement: the ballots these cases concern are from 2024 and earlier, no allegation in Monday's releases claims Iniguez voted in the 2026 midterms, and the prosecutions will be decided in courtrooms in Gainesville and Atlanta long after the midterm results are counted.