With next month’s midterm elections about two weeks away, the Trump administration is stepping up efforts to deport noncitizen voters. On Monday, the Justice Department filed criminal charges against more than two dozen green card holders in California, accusing them of illegally registering to vote or casting fraudulent ballots. The 28 defendants are legal permanent residents who have legal status in the country but are not citizens who are allowed to vote.
According to data on the issue, non-citizen voting is extremely rare and has not been shown to affect campaign outcomes. This practice not only leaves a paper trail but also carries severe penalties. “Federal laws prohibit non-citizens from registering and voting in federal elections; violators are subject to dismissal and face up to five years in prison,” Citizenship and Immigration Services acknowledged in an October 2024 letter. “The evidence is clear that these laws are working as intended—it is extremely rare for non-citizens to vote in federal elections.”
But that hasn’t stopped members of the Trump administration from insisting on the Justice Department’s recent arrests, known as Operation Protect the Vote, as evidence of midterm election fraud. “This is causing real harm to real elections and to American citizens,” Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCourt of the Justice Department said at a news conference in Los Angeles.
Less than a week ago, the Justice Department sued California and sent officials a list of names on a USB drive and handwritten passwords, demanding to know whether those on the list were citizens and giving officials only 48 hours to respond. Los Angeles County Clerk and Recorder Dean Logan told the Guardian that his office declined to review the list, in part because they believe the USB drives are unsafe. “The Department of Justice has provided no underlying evidence, sources or methodology to support its assertion that the individuals identified in its records are ineligible to vote,” Logan said in a statement.
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Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener posted on “
Proposition 39, also known as the Voter Identification, Citizenship Verification, and Registered Voter List Management Initiative, is basically a voter ID law. If passed, it would, among other things, require voters to present a government-issued ID to vote in person or provide the last four digits of a government-issued ID specified during voter registration to vote by mail.
Allegations of voter fraud and non-citizen voting are not new to the Trump administration. It’s a tactic that Donald Trump explored in his 2024 presidential campaign but was largely abandoned as unnecessary after his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. David Becker, CEO, Center for Election Innovation and Research. “You can absolutely bet that if Trump loses, he will claim, without any evidence, that there was widespread non-citizen voting. That will incite anger and potential violence,” Becker told NPR in September 2024.
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