On the morning Americans were voting in the midterm elections, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) chose Election Day itself to announce a Tennessee case that goes to the heart of who is allowed to cast a ballot in the United States. ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office in Chattanooga said its agents had arrested two men in Cleveland, Tennessee — Frederic Jean Rene Sicard, a French national, and Mark Adwar Odisho, an Iraqi national — and charged both with voting by aliens, a federal offence. Federal authorities allege that both men cast ballots in the United States presidential election of November 5, 2024, even though, as non-citizens, they had no legal right to vote in it. The arrests were made on October 29 and were announced publicly on Tuesday, November 3, as voters across the country were deciding the balance of power in Congress and a slate of governorships.
The United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee gave the fuller picture of the two defendants. Odisho is 30, an Iraqi national residing in Cleveland, Tennessee; Sicard is 50, a French national also residing in Cleveland. The Justice Department's national announcement the same day identified both men as lawful permanent residents — green-card holders — not people who had entered the country illegally. Odisho made his initial appearance in federal court on October 29, 2026, the day of the arrests, and Sicard made his on October 30. Assistant United States Attorney Jonathan S. Wilson will represent the United States in the case. The Justice Department reminded the public, in its own words, that a criminal complaint 'constitutes only charges and that every person is presumed innocent until their guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.'
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Tennessee — Two Aliens Charged With Illegal Voting
ICE framed the arrests as election protection. 'Election security is national security,' said Micah Bock, ICE's Assistant Director of Public Affairs. 'When foreign nationals allegedly cast ballots in our elections, they undermine the integrity of the democratic process and the rights of lawful voters. Our election laws are not optional, and ICE will work with our law enforcement partners to investigate violations and hold offenders accountable.' The agency said the arrests were made under the leadership of President Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting ICE Director David J. Venturella.
How the case was built
According to ICE, HSI Chattanooga carried out the arrests as part of a joint investigation with the FBI, with assistance from the Cleveland Police Department — the local force in the Bradley County city of Cleveland, about 30 miles northeast of Chattanooga in southeast Tennessee. The criminal complaint and arrest warrants against the two men were issued by the Eastern District of Tennessee on October 23, six days before the arrests. Neither ICE nor the United States Attorney's Office has said in its releases how the two ballots were first flagged, what evidence links each man to a 2024 ballot, or whether either man is accused of registering himself or of voting more than once. WVLT in Knoxville, reporting the ICE announcement on Election Day, likewise noted that federal officials had released no further detail about the voting allegations themselves.
United States Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III, for the Eastern District of Tennessee, put the prosecution's position plainly: 'These complaints reflect how seriously the United States views protecting the unique benefits of American citizenship. The right to vote is a fundamental privilege of American citizenship, and the theft of that privilege by a non-citizen will be prosecuted.' That sentence is the legal core of the case: in the United States, voting in a federal election is reserved to citizens, and a green card — lawful permanent residence — does not carry the franchise with it.
Part of the largest voter-fraud sweep of this administration
The Cleveland arrests were one piece of a much larger announcement. On November 3 the Justice Department said it had charged 63 individuals — including four people it described as illegal aliens — with illegal voting, fraudulent voter registration and related election crimes across the country. '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.' The department said that in the last nine weeks alone it has charged 195 non-citizens across 25 states with illegal voting and registration offences, and 239 people in total with voting-fraud-related offences since the beginning of this administration.
Tennessee appears in the sweep three times over. Beyond the two Eastern District cases in Cleveland, three more lawful permanent residents were charged in the Middle District of Tennessee — a Jamaican national, a Honduran national and a Trinidad and Tobago national, each accused of voting in the 2024 election and of falsely representing themselves as United States citizens on a Tennessee voter registration application — and two more were charged in the Western District, a Mexican national in Haywood County and a German national accused of voting in Fayette County in both the 2022 and 2024 elections. A striking share of the defendants named across the national announcement, in state after state, are lawful permanent residents like Sicard and Odisho — people living legally in the United States who are accused of crossing the one line their status does not allow them to cross.
A green card makes you a lawful permanent resident; it does not make you a voter. Only United States citizens may vote in federal elections, and these November 3 charges show federal prosecutors actively working backwards through the 2024 ballots: many of the 63 people charged are long-settled permanent residents, not new arrivals. Registering to vote, or casting a ballot, as a non-citizen can bring a federal criminal case and can also endanger a person's immigration future, including a later application for citizenship, where voting history is asked about under oath. Anyone who is a permanent resident and finds themselves on a voter roll should take legal advice before voting — and remember that Sicard and Odisho are charged, not convicted: the complaints against them are allegations they are entitled to contest in court.
What happens next
Both cases now proceed in federal court in the Eastern District of Tennessee, where the government is represented by Assistant United States Attorney Jonathan S. Wilson. ICE and the Justice Department have announced no trial dates, no plea discussions and no further defendants in the Cleveland case, and neither agency has said whether the two men remain in custody or were released after their initial appearances on October 29 and 30. The wider sweep is still moving: the Justice Department says its nine-week tally of non-citizens charged with illegal voting and registration offences has reached 195 across 25 states, and its Election Day announcement was timed — by the department's own presentation — to land while the 2026 midterms were being decided. Awaaz Punjab will follow the Cleveland case as it moves through the court.