Federal agents arrested alleged noncitizen voters across California under Operation Protect the Vote, days after the DOJ sued the state over a 20,000-name suspect list.
Homeland Security Investigations agents pounded on the door of a Commerce home around 6 a.m. Monday and took 72-year-old Alexander Muñoz into custody. He is one of more than two dozen foreign nationals sought in the federal push dubbed “Operation Protect the Vote.”
Authorities say the targets fraudulently registered to vote, and most allegedly cast illegal ballots. Los Angeles top federal prosecutor Bill Essayli said the cases support the government’s claim that noncitizens have been voting in California elections. Prosecutors planned a press conference later Monday morning to lay out more details.
The roundup landed days after the Trump administration sued California for refusing to review a list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens who allegedly registered ahead of next month’s midterm election. Federal law allows only U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections.
Agents called for Muñoz at his front door. He came out and was taken into custody. The New York Post reported the arrest as part of the wider Monday operation across the state.
Authorities say the Belizean national fraudulently registered to vote in September 2019 by claiming he was a U.S. citizen. They say he then voted in 2020, twice in 2022, and again in 2024.
Prosecutors also say he lied under oath on a naturalization application by falsely stating he had never claimed to be a citizen. He faces felony charges that include making false statements in that application. The pattern fits a broader Trump DOJ crackdown on immigration-linked election fraud cases in California.
It was not immediately clear how many of the more than two dozen suspects had been apprehended. Local officials have denied that widespread electoral wrongdoing is a problem in the state.
Essayli tied the Monday cases directly to the notice federal officials had already given the state.
LA’s top federal prosecutor said:
"Today’s arrests confirm what we suspected and what we put California on notice for: Noncitizens are voting in California elections which is unconstitutional and illegal,"
That warning did not arrive cold. On Tuesday, federal officials sent letters to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan. They also supplied Los Angeles County with a password-protected thumb drive naming suspected noncitizens who had been sent mail-in ballots.
Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter warned Weber and Logan they would face a legal challenge if they failed to review the list in time. Justice Department officials ordered the state’s election bosses to complete that review within 48 hours. A representative for Logan confirmed the letter was received.
Two days after the Tuesday order, the Trump administration filed suit against California. The complaint centered on the state’s failure to review the list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizen registrations tied to the coming midterm.
DOJ lawyers argued the federal government has an obligation to stop the state from letting noncitizens vote in federal elections. The sequence matches earlier pressure in which Trump warned California officials over suspected noncitizen ballots and the legal stakes that follow.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the lawsuit in blunt terms.
Blanche said:
"State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America,"
He added:
"If found responsible in a court of law, the State of California will have seriously undermined confidence in our electoral system."
Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected the federal effort. He framed the arrests and the lawsuit as political interference timed to the election calendar.
Newsom wrote on X:
"This is a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day,"
He also wrote:
"Courts have made clear the federal government has no role in running state elections."
Federal prosecutors point the other way. They cite charging documents, a multi-year voting history attributed to Muñoz, a statewide suspect list numbered in the tens of thousands, and a thumb drive of names already mailed ballots in Los Angeles County. The dispute over who polices those rolls sits in the same fight that has reached other states, including cases where the DOJ challenged governors on voter rolls.
Muñoz’s file shows why federal agents treated the case as more than a single bad registration. Authorities say he claimed citizenship to get on the rolls in 2019, voted across multiple federal cycles, then denied under oath that he had ever made that claim when he sought naturalization.
False statements on a naturalization application are a felony. That charge lines up with a wider Justice Department focus on stripping status and removing people who lied their way into the system, including the department’s denaturalization push in other enforcement lanes.
Operation Protect the Vote now puts those allegations in open court. Essayli said the Monday charges buttress the government’s claim of widespread noncitizen voting in California. State leaders still call that claim a myth and a partisan attack.
The public record already shows a specific sequence. A thumb drive went to Los Angeles County. Letters went to Weber and Logan. A 48-hour review order went out. A lawsuit followed when the state did not comply. Agents then moved on more than two dozen foreign nationals charged with fraudulent registration, most of them accused of casting illegal ballots.
Only citizens may vote in federal elections. California’s election bosses were told to scrub a list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizen registrations before the next midterm. Federal agents are now making arrests while the state’s leaders argue Washington has no business in the fight. Handcuffs and charging papers are a harder answer than another press release.
