President Trump’s Justice Department is cracking down on illegal voting with two weeks to go before the midterms. Under “Operation Protect the Vote,” all four U.S. Attorney’s Offices in California charged 28 foreign nationals with federal crimes, including fraudulently registering to vote in U.S. elections. Federal agents arrested 11 of them on Monday. On Tuesday the department released video of the takedown, and the White House shared the announcement.
All 28 are lawful permanent residents, or green-card holders. They live here legally, but they are not U.S. citizens and they are not allowed to vote. According to court documents, they lied under oath that they were citizens so they could register to vote in California, and in many cases they went on to cast ballots. Then, prosecutors say, they lied again on their paperwork to become citizens, swearing they had never claimed citizenship or voted. The charges include false statements on a naturalization application and fraudulent voter registration, both felonies that carry up to five years in federal prison. Defendants in the Eastern District face a voting-by-an-alien charge.
“Every illegal vote cancels out the vote of a lawful American citizen,” said Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter. “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. California refused to look at that list. Today’s charges show exactly what that refusal puts at risk. California must verify the citizenship of those more than 20,000 registrants before mail-in ballots are counted.”
The federal government handed California that list on Oct. 13 so the vote-by-mail ballots of these individuals could be set aside until their citizenship was confirmed. California declined to help. That prompted a lawsuit by the United States seeking a court order “to prevent the unlawful dilution of American citizens’ votes and to uphold the integrity of our elections.” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli did not hold back: “Today’s arrests prove what we have been saying. California is mailing ballots to noncitizens, and they are refusing to comply with federal law, which makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote. The voting rights of American citizens must be protected.”
Homeland Security Investigations worked the cases with federal, state and local partners and vowed to keep going. For President Trump, who signed an executive order limiting mail-in voting in March, the message is simple: American elections are for American citizens, and those who cheat will be caught.
