Trump pursues last-ditch hunt for voter fraud

The Trump administration says Americans should prepare between now and Election Day for a wave of new arrests and prosecutions over alleged non-citizen voter fraud .

Why it matters: The Trump administration is deploying hundreds of federal investigators and attorneys to pursue President Trump's long-running fixation — and test a broader Republican claim that tougher enforcement will uncover far more illegal voting.

"This initiative is a tier one priority," a Justice Department official told reporters on Tuesday.

"It's a top priority for the attorney general and for the White House." The big picture: Across the country, there are now 1,600 open cases of potential voter fraud and 160 people have been arrested, a Homeland Security Investigations official said Tuesday.

HSI agents have been requesting and combing through publicly available voter data to find cases of non-citizens registering to vote or voting when they're ineligible.

The FBI has been working on these cases too.

DOJ has charged 24 immigrants this calendar year following the prioritization, according to agency press releases.

The accused are a mixture of undocumented immigrations and legal residents.

The number of prosecutions will "rise significantly each week going forward from now until the election," the DOJ official said.

Zoom in: To support these investigations, which the HSI official called agent-time intensive, Homeland Security staff have shifted work time from other priorities.

HSI agents typically investigate smuggling, trafficking, financial fraud and sexual exploitation crimes.

The intrigue: Staff usually focused on finding immigration fraud at U.S.

Citizenship and Immigration Services, the office for legal immigration, have also been tasked with searching for possible non-citizens registered in state voter files.

This staff sent referrals to HSI to investigate, according to the New York Times , and flagged the potential non-citizens by the thousands to state election officials .