Federal agents arrested 11 people across California on Monday as the Justice Department announced charges against 28 green card holders accused of registering to vote by falsely claiming U.S. citizenship. Prosecutors say most of them cast ballots and that many later stated, while applying for citizenship, that they had never claimed to be citizens or voted.
All 28 are lawful permanent residents. They have legal immigration status but are not citizens, and they are not permitted to vote in U.S. elections. The department said the arrests were part of Operation Protect the Vote, a coordinated push by all four U.S. attorney's offices in the state, and that the people taken into custody were expected to make initial appearances in federal court Monday afternoon. No pleas were to be entered at those hearings. Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said the remaining defendants would be taken into custody "in the near future," USA Today reported.
The charges differ from district to district. In the Central District, where the 13 defendants live in communities from Long Beach to Anaheim, every defendant faces felony counts that include making false statements on a naturalization application. The department says that offense and fraudulent voter registration each carry a maximum of five years in federal prison. Six defendants in the Eastern District, including residents of Sacramento and Fresno, are charged with voting by an alien in a federal election, a misdemeanor that carries up to a year. The nine charged in the Northern and Southern districts face counts of attempting to obtain naturalization unlawfully and making false statements under oath in naturalization matters, plus alien voting in the Northern District and a false claim of citizenship to vote in the Southern District.
As the department describes them, most of the cases follow the same arc. According to court documents it cited, the defendants swore on registration forms that they were citizens, saw those registrations approved and, in many cases, voted in recent elections. Then, prosecutors say, they stated in naturalization paperwork that they had never claimed citizenship, registered or voted. The oldest registrations listed in the release date to 2002. At least two defendants are accused of registering on Election Day in November 2024 and voting that same day, and one is accused of voting as recently as the June 2026 primary.
Each of the 28 appears on the list of more than 20,000 likely noncitizen registrants that federal officials gave California election officials last week, said Trent McCotter, the acting deputy attorney general. "California refused to look at that list," McCotter said. "Today's charges show exactly what that refusal puts at risk."
The department says it sent the state the names on Oct. 13 so that those voters' mail ballots could be held back until their citizenship was confirmed, and that California's refusal to help set the ballots aside prompted a federal lawsuit. The suit came after state officials did not meet a 48-hour deadline to review a password-protected thumb drive holding the list, the Associated Press reported. On Monday, the government asked the court to order California to set aside ballots from suspected noncitizens and verify their citizenship before tabulating mail ballots, and it wants that order in place in time for the Nov. 3 election.
Essayli said the arrests bore out the government's warnings. "Today's arrests prove what we have been saying," he said. "California is mailing ballots to noncitizens, and they are refusing to comply with federal law, which makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote." He said the department has now charged 113 people nationwide with illegal voting and registration offenses, a total the AP, citing the department, said spans 20 states over the past several weeks.
John A. Condon, the acting executive associate director of Homeland Security Investigations, said the agency would keep pursuing people who knowingly violate federal law "while ensuring that every investigation is conducted fairly, thoroughly, and consistent with due process."
California's secretary of state has disputed the list itself. Shirley Weber has said the administration provided no evidence that the people on it are noncitizens, according to the AP, which reported that requests for comment sent Monday to the secretary of state, the state attorney general and the governor's office were not immediately returned. Last week, after the department warned in a letter that officials who knowingly tabulate ballots from people flagged as noncitizens could become aiders and abettors to a federal crime, Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan said the department "has chosen to litigate their unverified assertions of voting eligibility" and that "it is best for this to be addressed in court."
At one arrest in Commerce, a small Los Angeles County city, people who came out of the house questioned the number of heavily armed officers and the need for handcuffs, the AP reported. The news agency also noted that available data show noncitizen voting is rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of a race.
California has more than 23 million registered voters and mails a ballot to every one of them, and early voting is already underway. McCotter said the 20,000 figure was likely to rise. "That's just the floor," he said.
A criminal complaint contains only accusations, the department noted, and every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in court.