Federal illegal voting arrest becomes latest flashpoint in Sherrill's battles with Trump administration, tell me about this news in (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-illegal-voting-arrest-latest-flashpoint-sherrill-battles-trump-administration)
25-09-2026
The report from Fox News covers the following details:
Federal law enforcement agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI arrested Sanata Coulibaly, a Senegalese national and lawful permanent resident, in Hudson County, New Jersey. She was charged with voting by an alien and unlawfully procuring citizenship.
According to federal prosecutors:
Coulibaly arrived in the U.S. in approximately 1993 on a B-1 visa and later obtained lawful permanent resident status.
She submitted a paper voter registration application in Hudson County falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen.
She is accused of casting ballots in the November 2018 midterm election, the July 2020 primary, the November 2020 general election, and the 2024 general election while not being a citizen.
When applying for naturalization (Form N-400), she allegedly claimed she had never registered to vote or cast a ballot in a federal election.
The arrest has become a major flashpoint between the Trump administration and New Jersey Democratic Governor Mikie Sherrill over election integrity and immigration policies:
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin cited the arrest to argue that noncitizen voting is a real issue, criticizing “sanctuary politicians.”
The tension follows Sherrill’s disclosure that a motor vehicle agency software glitch had mistakenly registered approximately 6,600 noncitizens, of whom fewer than 400 were found to have voted in state elections.
While the federal Department of Justice demanded access to New Jersey’s voter rolls, the state resisted the federal demands while continuing its own internal review.
The arrest is part of an ongoing, wider federal election-integrity initiative by the Justice Department, which recently announced voting-related charges against 16 individuals across multiple states.