Federal authorities have charged 28 legal permanent residents in California with illegal voter registration, voting as noncitizens or lying on immigration forms, the Associated Press reported in a story published by The Haitian Times. Most of them had applied for U.S. citizenship, and the arrests took place on Monday, October 19.

The Justice Department said six people face misdemeanor charges for voting as noncitizens, while 22 face felony charges, including lying on naturalization applications or voter registration forms. Illegal voting carries up to a year in prison, and lying on a naturalization application up to 10 years. The cases came out of a Homeland Security benefits fraud audit that began in August.

Many of those charged have lived in the United States for years, some for decades. A Los Angeles man who has been a permanent resident for about 40 years is accused of falsely claiming citizenship when he registered to vote around 2007, but not of casting a ballot. He told the AP he never voted because he knew he could not.

The AP notes that noncitizen voting is extremely rare and has not been shown to change election results. The Justice Department has also sued California over its refusal to verify the citizenship of about 20,000 registered voters. Naturalizations have slowed sharply: 58,000 applications were approved from April to June 2026, less than a quarter of the number in the same period of 2025.