On October 19, 2026, fifteen days before the midterms, the Justice Department announced that federal agents had arrested 11 people and that 28 had been charged by criminal complaint in California under what it called “Operation Protect the Vote,” run by all four of the state's U.S. attorney's offices with Homeland Security Investigations. All 28 are lawful permanent residents. “The criminal charges include making false statements in a naturalization application and some of the defendants also are charged with fraudulent voter registration,” the department said. Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter said, “Each of the 28 defendants charged today appears on the list of more than 20,000 likely noncitizen registrants we provided to California election officials last week.”
Some of the registrations date back years, and not every defendant is accused of voting; U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said, “Not all of the 28 individuals arrested have voted,” CBS News reported. Gov. Gavin Newsom's office said the department has “only charged 113 people across 20 states.” Noncitizen voting is a crime and the department has authority to prosecute it; what is new is the timing, during voting, and the use of the cases to support the department's demand that California hold back the ballots of everyone on its list (see Supreme Court Rejects Trump Bid to Set Aside California Ballots Tied to a Disputed Federal List of About 20,000 Names and DHS Launched a Nine-State Voter Fraud Surge With Field Interviews as Early Voting Opened). Mother Jones described the arrests as “voter raids”; the department's own figures show 11 arrests.
Update (October 22, 2026): one of those arrested, Omar Alexander Muñoz, a 72-year-old permanent resident born in Belize, told FOX 11 Los Angeles, “No, I didn't register to vote,” and suggested someone may have used his identity. The Justice Department says he registered in September 2019 and voted in 2020, 2022 and 2024. His daughter told the Los Angeles Times the family was trying to find out whether he had been confused with younger relatives of the same name, “including a U.S.-born son who is a registered voter.” A magistrate judge released the four defendants arraigned in Los Angeles on their own recognizance, with a preliminary hearing set for November 9. The charges are allegations.
Update (October 23, 2026): Muñoz described his October 19 arrest to the Guardian. He said agents banged on his door a little after 5 a.m. and shouted, “Open up or else we'll break down the door, and it'll be bad for you,” that he told them he was frail after six recent surgeries, and that he was handcuffed and walked out in the red pajama pants he had slept in past about six law enforcement vehicles and cameras while a helicopter flew overhead. Photographs by an Associated Press photographer show officers in helmets, masks and shields escorting him. “It was staged and I'm the patsy,” he said. “They wanted to make a scene.” He said he was chained at the waist and feet and given an apple and a candy bar as his only food that day. The Justice Department posted an edited video of the arrest to X set to music and captioned “OPERATION PROTECT THE VOTE”; defense lawyers told the Guardian that in such cases prosecutors typically coordinate with federal defenders to have defendants appear for a hearing, and Justin Levitt, a Loyola law professor and former deputy assistant attorney general, called the video “disgusting.” On his lawyer's advice Muñoz declined to discuss the charges. The Justice Department did not respond to the Guardian's questions; DHS declined to comment.