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Federal Authorities Arrest 11 in California; 28 Green-Card Holders Face Election-Crime Charges

Writer: The LA Jewish Home
The LA Jewish Home
1 day ago
4 min read

DOJ says the statewide cases include defendants from Los Angeles-area communities. The criminal allegations are separate from the federal government’s contested voter-roll lawsuit against California.


Federal agents arrested 11 people across California on Monday as the Justice Department announced charges against 28 lawful permanent residents accused of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to register to vote. Prosecutors are now pointing to the cases in a separate fight with the state over a far larger, and still unproven, claim about noncitizens on California’s voter rolls.


Nearly half of the defendants live in Southern California. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, which covers Los Angeles and Orange counties, listed 13 defendants from Commerce, Rancho Palos Verdes, Long Beach, Pico Rivera, La Puente, West Covina, Wilmington, Carson, West Adams and Anaheim. The office did not say which of the 28 defendants were among the 11 taken into custody.


None of the defendants has been convicted. The charges were filed through criminal complaints and, in one case, an information, both of which are formal accusations. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, a point the Justice Department’s own announcement makes.


What prosecutors allege


The cases were brought jointly by California’s four U.S. Attorney’s Offices under what the department calls “Operation Protect the Vote.” Homeland Security Investigations led the Central District investigation. The FBI joined cases in the Eastern, Northern and Southern districts, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services worked on the San Diego-area cases.


Prosecutors describe a common pattern. According to the department, each defendant swore on a voter-registration application that he or she was a U.S. citizen. Later, applying to become a citizen, the defendant allegedly denied on naturalization paperwork ever having claimed citizenship, registered or voted. The department says 22 of the 28 cast ballots, and a 23rd, an Anaheim resident, submitted a provisional ballot in 2020.


The charges are not the same in every district. In the Central District, defendants face felony counts that include fraudulent voter registration and false statements on a naturalization application, each carrying a maximum of five years in federal prison. In the Eastern District, which includes Sacramento and Fresno, the main charge is voting by an alien in a federal election, a misdemeanor with a one-year maximum. Cases in the Bay Area and San Diego combine naturalization-fraud and voting counts.


The department said those arrested were expected to make initial appearances in federal court Monday afternoon and that no pleas would be entered.


Two cases, one message


The arrests came four days after the Justice Department sued California over its voter rolls. On Oct. 13, according to the department, federal officials gave the state a list of registrants and asked election officials to set aside those voters’ mail ballots until their citizenship could be confirmed. The state declined, and the department filed suit on Oct. 15.


In that lawsuit, the department says “more than 20,000 people who are likely aliens are registered to vote in California.” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin called the figure the product of a “preliminary analysis” that remains “ongoing.” The department says the list it gave the state included the people charged Monday.


Federal officials have presented the two matters as one. “Today’s arrests prove what we have been saying,” said Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said, “California must verify the citizenship of those more than 20,000 registrants before mail-in ballots are counted.”


Legally, though, they are separate cases. The 28 criminal cases are individual prosecutions, and each must be proved on its own facts in court. The 20,000 figure is an unresolved claim in a civil lawsuit, and the 28 people charged make up about 0.14% of it. A conviction in any of the criminal cases would not establish that the rest of the list is accurate.


California’s objection


Secretary of State Shirley Weber rejected the federal demand in an Oct. 15 letter to the Justice Department. Her central objection is about evidence: “DHS still has not provided any information about the underlying data or methodology,” she wrote. She described federal citizenship records as “known to be unreliable,” citing a federal court decision, and said the government had not explained why it suspected the voters on its list.


Weber argued that withholding ballots on the basis of an unverified list would disenfranchise eligible voters and conflict with state and federal law. “I will not disenfranchise thousands of Californians,” she wrote. She also left room for the federal government to back up its claim, saying the state would “welcome the opportunity to review that evidence and any supporting data or methodology” and would then “take the appropriate steps in compliance with federal and state law.”


Weber’s letter was written before Monday’s charges were announced. As of publication, the sources reviewed for this article contained no state response to the arrests.


The criminal cases now go forward in four federal courthouses, and the civil lawsuit will be decided separately. Both are moving as county officials process mail ballots for the Nov. 3 general election.


Sources


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