Sudanese and Afghan Nationals Charged with Illegal Voting in Nevada

Federal prosecutors in Nevada charged two foreign nationals this week with illegally casting ballots in the 2024 election, the latest cases in a Justice Department push that has produced dozens of similar charges nationwide while Democratic-led states continue to resist full access to voter rolls and federal verification tools.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada announced charges against Moneir Elzobier Ali Yousif, a lawful permanent resident from Sudan, and Khalida Safi, a lawful permanent resident from Afghanistan. Both are accused of voting in a federal election for president, Senate, and House races—Yousif on or around October 29, 2024, and Safi on or around November 5, 2024. Each faces one count of voting by an alien, punishable by up to one year in prison, a fine of up to $100,000, or both. The cases were investigated by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Sigal Chattah issued a pointed statement: “As these cases show, the public and political narrative that Nevada’s elections are not fraught with fraud is categorically false. Let these cases serve as a stark, unmistakable warning: if you deliberately try to subvert the democratic process, my office will hunt you down, expose your actions, and prosecute you to the absolute fullest extent of the law. My office will continue to investigate and charge any individuals who engage in election fraud. We are drawing a hard line in the sand to protect the legal votes of our citizens, and anyone who crosses it will face severe consequences.”

The charges follow a similar case announced days earlier against Jullie Ann Sumalinog Moore, a Filipino national and lawful permanent resident accused of voting in the November 2024 election. These Nevada cases are part of a broader DOJ effort.

As the California Globe reported earlier this week, the department announced charges against 48 aliens for illegal voting and election crimes across five states, including California and Nevada. The sweep involved allegations of illegal voting, fraudulent registration, and false claims of citizenship. Officials have said more than 100 such cases have been brought in a short period as part of intensified enforcement.

The prosecutions arrive against a backdrop of ongoing friction between the Justice Department and Democratic-led states over voter-roll access. The DOJ has sued roughly 30 states and the District of Columbia demanding unredacted statewide voter files to check for compliance with federal maintenance rules and to identify potential noncitizens. Most of those lawsuits have been dismissed by federal judges so far, with appeals underway. Separately, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has reported that a review of records from states that cooperated voluntarily turned up more than 260,000 dead people and thousands of noncitizens registered to vote.

Nevada, a swing state known for razor-thin elections, has been a flashpoint.

As the Globe previously reported, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar’s office delayed and failed to provide complete voter registration records to the DOJ after requests that sought all fields required under the Help America Vote Act, including driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. Aguilar’s office called the request “unprecedented” and cited privacy concerns under state law.

What is unprecedented is Aguilar’s quiet but massive purge of nearly 400,000 voter registrations in roughly 15 months. Under the Democratic Secretary of State, Nevada inactivated more than 138,000 voters and canceled nearly 177,000 registrations in 2025 alone as part of list maintenance—plus additional actions in 2026. The result has been dramatic: Democrats’ registration advantage, which stood at more than 80,000 voters in early 2020 (when the party held roughly 38 percent of the electorate), has collapsed to a razor-thin statewide lead of just 672 voters. Clark County accounted for the bulk of the cancellations, shrinking a once-dominant Democratic edge in the state’s largest county and overall.

Critics have noted that the volume of cancellations underscores long-accumulated inaccuracies even as the state has resisted full federal review. Chattah’s office has framed the latest charges as evidence that the problem is not theoretical. Only U.S. citizens may vote in federal elections; lawful permanent residents and other noncitizens who cast ballots violate federal law regardless of how they obtained registration.

As midterm voting continues, the tension between federal enforcement actions and state resistance to data-sharing remains unresolved. Prosecutors say they will keep bringing cases. State officials in Nevada and elsewhere maintain their rolls are already being cleaned under existing rules. The courts, and the election returns, will determine which side prevails.