Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced charges against six lawful permanent residents accused of unlawfully registering to vote and casting fraudulent ballots, according to statements made on Monday. The defendants, who hold green cards and originate from Mexico, Israel, the Philippines, Canada, and Iran, each face a single charge of making false statements on a naturalization application. Five of the six have been arrested. The charges represent an expansion of the administration’s voter fraud prosecution efforts in California, following similar charges filed against 28 people in the previous month.
The prosecutions are part of a broader Trump administration push against California’s election processes. The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate approximately 20,000 ballots it claims may belong to noncitizens who fraudulently registered, and federal prosecutors have repeatedly threatened to criminally prosecute election officials who process such ballots. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, defended the government’s methodology as having a “very, very high confidence rate,” though officials acknowledged the list “may not be 100%” accurate.
State election leaders and legal experts have challenged the administration’s actions as flawed and improper. California officials contend that prosecutors’ list and methodology are unreliable and that complying with demands mid-election would be logistically impossible and risk disenfranchising U.S. citizens. Multiple judges have rejected the Justice Department’s efforts, with the U.S. Supreme Court declining the Trump administration’s appeals on Monday. A federal judge rebuffed the administration’s threats against election officials as “intimidation” and “coercion,” blocking the department from continuing such threats.
Experts have characterized the timing of the prosecutions as extraordinary, noting that federal prosecutors traditionally avoid taking steps during elections that could appear politically motivated. An immigrants’ rights group analyzing the 20,000-name list found that over 40 percent of flagged voters could not be found on California’s voter rolls. The 20,000 names represent a small fraction of California’s approximately 23 million registered voters. Voting by noncitizens has been described by experts as extremely rare, typically resulting from administrative confusion rather than intentional fraud.
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