DOJ charges 28 California green card holders with voting crimes. It wants 20,000 ballots held.
The arrests came 15 days before Election Day. DOJ says all 28 are on its unverified 20,000-name list, about 0.14% of it.
The Justice Department charged 28 lawful permanent residents in California with election and immigration crimes on Monday, Oct. 19, and arrested 11 of them in a statewide sweep it calls "Operation Protect the Vote." All four of California's U.S. attorney's offices filed cases: 13 in the Central District (Los Angeles area), six in the Eastern District, five in the Northern District and four in the Southern District.
The charges include lying on naturalization applications, fraudulent voter registration, falsely claiming citizenship to vote, and voting by a noncitizen in a federal election. The felonies carry up to five years in prison; the misdemeanor voting charge carries up to one year. Prosecutors allege most defendants voted in elections from 2020 through 2024, and one in the June 2026 primary. These are accusations. No one has entered a plea, and every defendant is presumed innocent.
Why it lands now
The arrests come 15 days before Election Day, in the middle of a fight over roughly 20,000 California voters the administration says are likely noncitizens. The department claimed all 28 defendants are on that list, which it gave state officials on Oct. 13 with a 48-hour deadline to set those voters' mail ballots aside. California refused, and the department sued. That claim has not been independently checked. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has said the administration has offered no evidence that the names belong to noncitizens.
"Every illegal vote cancels out the vote of a lawful American citizen," Trent McCotter, acting deputy attorney general, said in the department's announcement.
"The U.S. Department of Justice has chosen to litigate their unverified assertions of voting eligibility," said Dean Logan, Los Angeles County's registrar of voters, according to the AP.
Even taking the department at its word, 28 people would be about 0.14% of the 20,000 names on its list. The AP notes noncitizen voting is rare, hard to prove and has not been shown to change election outcomes.
What we don't know yet
The department hasn't said where each arrest happened or named every defendant, and it hasn't shown that any of them voted in this year's general election. No hearing has been set in its lawsuit against California.
If you're a citizen registered in California, your ballot still counts. Check your registration now, and read our coverage of the DOJ's threats against California election workers.
Sources
- Justice Department Charges 28 Foreign Nationals in California for Election Crimes (U.S. Department of Justice)
- 11 foreign nationals arrested in California on federal charges (U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California)
- Justice Department charges more than 2 dozen foreign nationals in California sweep targeting noncitizen voters (AP via PBS NewsHour)
- Federal operation targets alleged noncitizen voter registration in Commerce (ABC7 Los Angeles)
- Feds arrest more than two dozen green card holders in California for allegedly voting (Fortune)
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