Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said Thursday that the Justice Department is facing pushback after offering to help states clean up their voter rolls.

Dhillon said the department is committed to enforcing federal election laws to ensure only eligible U.S. citizens cast ballots.

During an appearance on Newsmax's “Bianca Across the Nation,” Dhillon said the DOJ has contacted election officials in all 50 states, offering assistance identifying deceased registrants and foreign nationals on voter rolls while reminding officials of their obligations under federal law.

"About a third of the states did voluntarily comply with us, and we're helping them get rid of dead people on the voter rolls, investigate potential noncitizens on the voter rolls, and really give confidence to the voters in those states," she said.

Dhillon said she could not explain why roughly two-thirds of states have declined the department's offer but stressed that enforcing voting laws is a core responsibility of the Civil Rights Division.

"My job is to enforce all of the federal laws relating to voting," she said. "Those laws include criminal penalties, not only for the people who falsely represent their citizenship to register to vote or vote illegally, but also election officials who knowingly allow or conspire with people to vote when they have no legal right to do so, including noncitizens."

Dhillon pushed back on claims that illegal voting is merely a theoretical concern, noting that the DOJ has brought multiple prosecutions over the past year and a half.

"This is not a fictional issue," she said. "We've, at the DOJ, prosecuted numerous people in the last year and a half who have voted illegally."

Dhillon pointed to the recent case of Australian national Denise Nataly Migliore, who federal prosecutors allege falsely claimed U.S. citizenship and voted in Louisiana's 2022 and 2024 federal elections.

She said the DOJ is prepared to provide states with lists of individuals believed to be ineligible to vote but suggested some election officials would rather avoid receiving that information.

"I think they don’t want to know,” Dhillon said. “That’s one reason why they aren’t cooperating with us at the Department of Justice because we will be giving them back a list of people and saying, ‘We've run these numbers of suspected people who didn't have citizenship record and we believe these 20,000 people on your voter rolls are not citizens. You need to remove them.’"

According to the Trump DOJ official, resistance to the effort has come from both Republican- and Democrat-led states.

"I've been getting pushback and complaints and whining about it from Utah, and from Arizona and from the usual suspects," she said. "Of course, they say it's bullying. It's law enforcement."

Dhillon said the department hopes states will comply voluntarily but made clear it will pursue violations when warranted.

"I actually hope that I don't have to prosecute anybody under this or other criminal statutes," she said. "But the reality is people are going to cheat. People are going to do this, and we're here to catch them and put an end to it."