Federal authorities have charged more than two dozen legal permanent residents in California as part of the Trump administration’s push to eliminate noncitizen voting ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Many of those charged had already applied for U.S. citizenship and now face serious criminal counts tied to alleged misrepresentations on immigration paperwork or during naturalization interviews.
Among those arrested is José Antonio Bañuelos-Díaz, a 42-year-old man who has lived in the United States for four decades and applied for citizenship in October 2025. Prosecutors allege he falsely claimed to be a citizen when registering to vote in 2007 and later lied about it on immigration documents. Notably, the government has not accused him of ever casting a ballot.
Bañuelos-Díaz said he was unaware he had even registered to vote until agents arrested him outside his Los Angeles home. He believes the registration may have occurred automatically when he obtained a driver’s license in California, where residents are prompted to register at the DMV. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
The charges carry steep consequences. While illegally voting as a noncitizen is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison, lying on a naturalization application is a felony that can result in up to 10 years behind bars. Of the 28 people charged, only six face the misdemeanor voting charge while the remaining 22 face felony counts.
In one case, Homeland Security agents arrested Pamele Line immediately after her naturalization interview in San Diego. Charging documents allege she registered to vote five times and submitted ballots in multiple elections while denying it on her paperwork. Line told investigators she believed she was a U.S. citizen because her mother had naturalized decades ago, not realizing she was too old at the time to be covered under that status.
Another defendant, Amandeep Kaur, has lived in the country for eight years and was also in the process of naturalizing. Her husband said she took her DMV written test in Hindi due to limited English and believes a ballot she received and returned in 2024 was actually a registration form.
The Trump administration has sued California for refusing to verify the citizenship of roughly 20,000 registered voters it suspects may be noncitizens. California officials have pushed back, arguing the federal figures are inflated and that the state already complies with existing law. Federal data also shows naturalization approvals dropped dramatically in mid-2026 compared to the same period the previous year.