ICE Arrests Bahamian Green-Card Holder After Armed-Robbery Record and 2020 Illegal Vote

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a Bahamian lawful permanent resident in suburban Atlanta after Homeland Security Investigations confirmed he voted illegally in the 2020 election and after a criminal record that already included armed robbery and assault on a police officer.

Anthony Tyrone Higgs was taken into custody Sept. 3 in Decatur, Ga., by HSI Atlanta. He is now held by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations. DHS said he was admitted as a lawful permanent resident in October 1976. The department has placed him in removal proceedings to revoke that status.

His record, as listed by DHS, includes two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime, two counts of grand larceny, armed robbery with a deadly weapon, criminal domestic violence, assault on a police officer, and resisting arrest. HSI Atlanta’s August investigation separately confirmed the 2020 illegal vote.

“This criminal alien from the Bahamas has a rap sheet for multiple violent crimes, including armed robbery, domestic violence, and assault on a police officer,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said. “On top of all of that, he illegally voted in the 2020 election. If even one non-citizen votes in our elections, it cancels out the vote of an American citizen. Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of ICE, this criminal will be removed from our country and can never interfere in our elections again.”

White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said Higgs “was a guest in our country who forfeited his right to be in the U.S. when he committed these violent crimes and voted in the 2020 election.” The White House added: “Any noncitizens who vote illegally in our elections will be arrested and removed. American elections are only for Americans.”

The arrest sits inside a broader Justice Department and DHS push before the Nov. 3 midterms. DHS General Counsel James Percival directed ICE earlier this year to treat illegal voting by aliens as a removal offense under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which does not require a criminal conviction before deportation proceedings begin. Attorney General Todd Blanche last week announced charges against five people in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Wisconsin for illegal voting or false registration tied to the 2022 or 2024 elections.

DHS has also publicized recent sentences and charges in other jurisdictions: Colombian national Carlos Felipe Jaramillo-Grajales drew three years in August after using a stolen identity to vote for more than 20 years, including in 2020; other cases cited by the department involve a Slovakian national in the 2022 midterms, an Australian national accused in Louisiana in 2022 and 2024, and Mauritanian national Mahady Sacko, charged in Philadelphia after alleged illegal votes dating to 2008 while under a 2002 removal order.

Higgs is presumed innocent of any new criminal voting charge until a court says otherwise. The immigration case is civil removal. The facts DHS put on the record are the 1976 admission, the violent convictions, the August HSI finding on the 2020 ballot, and the Sept. 3 arrest.