Justice Department charges 28 green card holders in California with illegal voting

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed criminal charges against 28 green card holders in California accused of fraudulently registering to vote and casting illegal ballots.

Eleven of the defendants had been taken into custody, with arrests continuing. Twenty-one of the 28 had cast unlawful ballots, according to a Justice Department spokesperson The Guardian.

The defendants are lawful permanent residents. They have legal status in the United States but are not U.S. citizens authorized to vote. Prosecutors allege they lied under oath on voter registration applications. Federal prosecutors for the Central District of California said the fraudulent applications were approved and that in many cases the defendants voted illegally in recent U.S. elections.

The charges include making false statements in a naturalization application and fraudulently signing up to vote, felonies that could carry five years in prison. The defendants in the Central District case are charged with voting by an alien in a federal election, according to the U.S. Attorney's office U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.

The criminal cases coincide with a separate civil effort by the department around the November midterm elections. The Justice Department has sued California to ask courts to block the state from counting certain ballots. It sent Los Angeles County election officials a thumb drive it said contained names of noncitizens unlawfully registered to vote.

The department demanded that state officials within 48 hours confirm whether people on its list were citizens and set aside the ballots of those who remained unconfirmed. It said it sent California officials a list of more than 20,000 people the federal government believes are likely noncitizens who were sent ballots by mail.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber condemned the demands as outrageous in a letter to the department. The accuracy of the federal list has been questioned. The Department of Homeland Security claimed in July 2026 that more than 190,000 registered voters in California may be noncitizens, then revised the number down to 20,000. California has 23.1 million registered voters, according to recent state figures. Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter acknowledged the government's list of alleged noncitizen voters in California might not be accurate.

The voter-fraud charges were brought by the Justice Department under the Trump administration. The administration said its California enforcement push is aimed at rooting out voter fraud ahead of next month's midterm elections The Sacramento Bee.