Newsom Says Trump “Is Not Screwing Around” as Feds Charge 28 in California Noncitizen Voting Sweep

Breaking

On Monday, federal prosecutors charged 28 foreign nationals in California in a statewide sweep the Justice Department calls Operation Protect the Vote. The operation sharpens the fight between the Trump administration and Gov. Gavin Newsom over the state’s voter rolls. According to the Associated Press, the Justice Department says the defendants are lawful permanent residents, not U.S. citizens. They face charges of making false statements on naturalization applications and submitting fraudulent voter registrations. Arrests took place in Commerce, a small city in Los Angeles County, and suspects were processed at the Federal Building in Los Angeles.

The arrests came days after the Justice Department sued California and Los Angeles County to stop the counting of mail ballots from about 20,000 people the federal government says are likely noncitizens. Newsom has fired back. “Trump is not screwing around,” he told a rally of New Hampshire Democrats in Exeter on Saturday, according to Democracy Docket. “He’s going after the voting rolls, trying to purge those rolls.”

Details & Background

The dispute began when Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter sent letters to the California secretary of state and the Los Angeles County clerk. The letters demanded a review of a list of names on a password-protected thumb drive within two days, and asked officials to set aside any returned ballots from people on the list. When California did not comply, the department filed suit on Thursday, October 15. According to ABC News, the Justice Department says it is not seeking a purge or the cancellation of any votes. It is asking a judge to order the state to set aside ballots from people on its list of likely noncitizens. On Friday, McCotter warned local officials that knowingly counting such ballots could expose them to investigation, writing, “The legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring a federal crime are significant.”

California officials call the demand baseless. Secretary of State Shirley Weber said the federal demands “serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in our elections,” adding that “California has robust state law requirements that only U.S. citizens can register to vote.” State officials say the Justice Department has lost more than two dozen straight court cases over voter-roll demands in the past year. The AP noted that noncitizen voting is rare and hard to prove, and has not been shown to change election outcomes. The Justice Department says it has charged 113 noncitizens nationwide in recent weeks, including a 72-year-old Belize-born man in California accused of voting illegally in four elections.

Reactions

The administration is not backing down. “This causes real damage to real elections and real damage to American citizens,” McCotter said, according to the AP. He added that the 20,000 figure would likely rise, saying, “That’s just the floor.” President Donald Trump has gone further, writing on Truth Social that California officials “will all go to jail for a long period of time,” according to Democracy Docket. Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan pushed back, saying, “The U.S. Department of Justice has chosen to litigate their unverified assertions of voting eligibility.”

Newsom answered Trump directly at the New Hampshire rally. “He called for the criminal prosecution of me and others this morning on Truth Social,” he said. He urged Democrats to fight harder. “We’ve got to be more aggressive,” Newsom said. “We’re trying to win arguments; they’re consolidating power.” On Sunday, he posted on X, “A blue wave isn’t enough. We need a BLUE TSUNAMI.”

Why This Matters to You

Only American citizens can vote in federal elections, and every illegal ballot cancels out the vote of a lawful citizen. The Trump administration is using criminal charges, federal lawsuits and direct warnings to state officials to enforce that rule in the nation’s largest state. California mails a ballot to every registered voter, so the accuracy of its voter rolls matters well beyond its own borders when control of Congress is at stake.

The showdown also puts one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent governors, and a potential 2028 presidential contender, in direct conflict with the president 15 days before the November 3 midterm elections. A federal judge will now decide whether California must set those ballots aside. However the courts rule, this fight will test public trust in American elections and how far federal authority reaches into the way states run them.