California sweep targets alleged noncitizen voters
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LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Federal authorities charged more than two dozen foreign nationals Monday in California as part of a statewide sweep targeting people who officials say have illegally registered or voted in U.S. elections.
The arrests are part of a Trump administration effort to root out noncitizen voting ahead of next month’s midterm elections, even though data shows that the problem is incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.
Federal officials on Monday blamed California officials for the alleged crimes, accusing them of facilitating noncitizen voting through inadequate voter roll maintenance and hiding it from the public. The charges escalated a simmering voter roll fight that came into focus last week when the Justice Department sued California and warned that local election workers who knowingly process or tabulate ballots submitted by noncitizen voters are at risk of investigation and potential prosecution.
The Justice Department said the 28 people who were charged as part of a sweep dubbed Operation Protect the Vote are lawful permanent residents -- but not U.S. citizens who are permitted to legally vote. They are charged with crimes including making false statements on a naturalization application and submitting fraudulent voter registrations.
“This causes real damage to real elections and real damage to American citizens,” Trent McCotter, the acting deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, said during a news conference in Los Angeles.
Rob Bonta, California’s Democratic attorney general, said Monday that there is no widespread voter fraud in California and that while “one-off” examples of voter fraud are possible, those instances are “a drop in the bucket” considering the state has 23 million registered voters.
Bonta said he expects his state to prevail in the federal government’s lawsuit, saying the Republican administration “has provided us with no facts of any ineligible voters, just a conclusory statement with no evidence to back it.”
The federal government has made noncitizen voting a priority this year, demanding detailed voter information -- including dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers -- from the states. While some states voluntarily handed over the information, the department sued 30 states and the District of Columbia to obtain it -- lawsuits that so far have been unsuccessful.
The Justice Department said Monday it has charged 113 people in 20 states with illegal voting and illegal registration offenses over the last seven weeks. It earlier said it had charged about 90 people for various types of election misconduct so far this year, including 50 who are alleged to have voted as noncitizens. There were more than 227 million registered voters in the United States during the 2024 presidential election.
The operation Monday involved the four U.S. attorneys’ offices across California in what the Justice Department intended as a statewide show of force.
Among the dozens of people arrested was a 72-year-old Belize-born man who is accused of voting illegally in four elections.
Dozens of federal agents descended on Omar Alexander Muñoz’s residential cul-de-sac in Commerce, a small city in Los Angeles County, to make the arrest. Muñoz was put in handcuffs in his pajamas and taken into federal custody downtown.
Esmeralda Muñoz, 70, said her family was furious that agents showed up to their home in full tactical gear with guns drawn to arrest her husband before dawn.
“It’s a show for them,” she said, calling it a “shame” that government officials arrived with camera crews and news helicopters.
She and her three children and 10 grandchildren are all U.S. citizens, she said; Omar Muñoz is a legal permanent resident, she said, and they didn’t realize that he was registered to vote. When they do talk about politics, Esmeralda said Omar has been a vociferous supporter of Trump.
The arrests were the latest in a flurry of activity that has unfolded in heavily Democratic California, which is not typically regarded as a key battleground state but does have a handful of competitive congressional races that could help determine which party controls the U.S. House for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.