Twenty-eight California immigrants are facing federal charges as the Trump administration targets alleged noncitizen voting ahead of the November election, while state officials say the cases offer little support for claims of widespread voter fraud.
Federal prosecutors announced the charges Monday in a statewide operation involving all four US attorneys’ offices in California, as CalMatters reports. The 28 defendants are reportedly lawful permanent residents who can legally live in the United States but are not eligible to vote in federal elections.
Prosecutors allege that 22 of the defendants cast ballots in at least one election, including as recently as the June primary, while five others registered to vote without casting ballots. Another allegedly submitted a provisional ballot in 2020.
According to the Associated Press, the Trump administration has prioritized alleged claims of noncitizen voting ahead of the November 3 election, demanding detailed voter records from states and suing 30 states and the District of Columbia for refusing to provide them. The Justice Department says it has charged 113 people across 20 states with illegal voting or registration in recent weeks, among more than 227 million registered voters nationwide in 2024.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said people who violated election laws should be held accountable if the allegations are proven, but argued that the cases do not support President Donald Trump’s repeated claims of widespread voter fraud, per CalMatters.
“Twenty-eight out of 23 million registered voters in California is just … a drop in the bucket numerically,” Bonta said Monday, adding that the figure represents approximately 0.0001% of registered voters.
The Justice Department is also pursuing a separate legal fight with California over its voter rolls. The AP reports that the department sued the state last week to prevent it from counting mail ballots from people the federal government has identified as potential noncitizens until their citizenship status can be verified.
The dispute reportedly followed a federal demand that California review a list of 20,000 names provided on a password-protected thumb drive within 48 hours. Federal officials claim the people listed may be noncitizens who received ballots for the November election, but California officials have said the administration has not provided evidence to substantiate that claim. The state sends mail ballots to all registered voters.
The Justice Department subsequently asked a court to require California to set aside ballots from the individuals in question and verify their citizenship before counting them, per the AP. Acting US Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said the 20,000 names were only the beginning of the federal government’s effort.
Cal Matters reports that First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli, who oversees federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, also warned that state election officials could face criminal consequences if they knowingly process ballots from people federal authorities have identified as noncitizens.
The Trump administration’s effort to change mail-voting rules has also faced legal setbacks. As SFist reported in August, the US Supreme Court temporarily sided with the administration in a procedural dispute over Trump’s executive order directing federal agencies to compile voter eligibility lists. The court ruled that the states challenging the order had not demonstrated sufficient immediate harm to sue, but the decision did not establish that the administration’s actions were lawful.
In mid-September, the high court issued an emergency order upholding a lower court ruling and preventing the US Postal Service from implementing Trump's executive order to screen recipients of mail-in ballots.
Late last month, the court subsequently ruled that the Department of Homeland Security could continue to use its online voter eligibility verification system, called SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements), however use of this database system is voluntary for states.
Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the administration’s actions last week, describing its investigation as “a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day,” according to CalMatters.
Newsom said the request to withhold ballots “should scare the hell out of every American,” adding that California would continue conducting elections while challenging the administration’s efforts.
Separately, the California Supreme Court ruled last month that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco broke election laws when he seized roughly 650,000 ballots from the 2025 special election.
Related: Supreme Court Hands Trump Temporary Win on Mail Ballots, More Legal Action to Come
