Immigrants seeking US citizenship targeted in Trump administration's illegal voting crackdown

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Most of the immigrants targeted by federal authorities in California this week for alleged voter fraud had applied for U.S. citizenship and now face charges related to lying on forms or during interviews. Those charges could lead to years in prison and thwart their efforts to naturalize.

One of them is José Antonio Bañuelos-Díaz, 42, who applied for citizenship in October 2025 after living in the country for 40 years and spending his entire adult life as a legal permanent resident. The federal government has alleged in charging documents that he improperly claimed to be a citizen in 2007 when registering to vote, then later lied about it on his immigration paperwork. The government hasn't accused him of casting a ballot.

Bañuelos-Díaz told The Associated Press he had no idea he had registered to vote until he was arrested Monday outside his Los Angeles home, though he recalls getting a driver's license around 2007. In California, people are prompted to register to vote when applying for a driver’s license.

“I have never voted because I know I can’t vote,” he said. “If there was a mistake, they should have called me out right away, not 20 years later.”

He was released from custody after his arrest but faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

Federal authorities on Monday charged more than two dozen legal permanent residents in California in a crackdown on people accused of illegally voting or registering to do so. As of Thursday morning, the government had filed charging documents in 10 of the 28 cases, offering additional details about how authorities relied on voter registration data to pursue broader criminal charges around immigration status.

Most of the immigrants charged in California have lived in the country for at least five years, and some of them for decades. They could face deportation if they lied on their citizenship application.

Immigrants convicted of illegally voting in the United States face up to a year in prison. Those convicted of lying on applications to become American citizens face up to a decade.

The Justice Department said in a statement that six people would be charged with voting as a noncitizen, a misdemeanor. The 22 others were facing a combination of felony charges including lying on their naturalization application during interviews or on voter registration forms.

In one case, Homeland Security agents arrested Pamele Arbues Line immediately following her Oct. 15 naturalization interview in San Diego.

In charging documents, the federal government said Line had allegedly registered to vote five times and had submitted ballots in several elections but said in her paperwork and in the interview that she had never voted or claimed to be a U.S. citizen. She later admitted to registering to vote while getting her driver’s license renewed last year and said she voted once, according to the charging documents.

Line, who is from the Philippines, told authorities she thought she was a U.S. citizen because her mother had become naturalized after they moved to the United States more than four decades ago. But Line, now 56, was 19 at the time and not covered by her mother's citizenship, according to the government. She learned she was not a citizen in June when she went to get a renewed Social Security card, and she told agents she applied for naturalization the same day, according to the documents.

She faces at least 10 years in prison if convicted of two charges.

The cases are part of a Trump administration effort to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections, even though data shows that the problem is incredibly rare , difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.

The Department of Justice has sued California for not complying with a request to verify the citizenship of roughly 20,000 registered voters it says may be noncitizens. California, which has more than 23 million registered voters, has argued the state complies with federal law and that the Trump administration's numbers are likely significantly inflated.

State election officials also noted once a ballot is mailed in, it is separated from any individual voter identification, making it impossible to separate based on the information provided by the federal government.

Beyond voting, the Trump administration has also ramped up immigration enforcement nationwide and slowed down the approval of naturalization applications. Government data shows officials approved 58,000 naturalization applications between April and June 2026, less than a quarter of the number approved in the same period in 2025, according to the data.

Immigrants can apply to become U.S. citizens after holding green cards for at least three years. They must answer extensive questions about activities related to voting, political activities and crime, pass background checks and a civics test and meet English language requirements.

The Department of Homeland Security did not say what initially drew attention to the immigrants charged but said in an email that the agency reviewed naturalization and other records in its investigation. Some of the court documents in the cases describe a benefits fraud audit performed by Homeland Security in August that started the process of identifying those charged this week.

“The voting rights of American citizens must be protected,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement announcing the charges this week.

Amandeep Kaur, who is among those charged, has lived in the country for eight years and is in the process of becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen, said her husband, Kulwinder Singh.

Singh said she got her driver's license in 2024 but took the written test at the DMV in Hindi because she struggles with English. He doesn’t know if she registered to vote then. He said she received and returned a ballot in 2024 but they both thought it was a registration form.

Now, he said his wife is distraught with the news that she may have done something illegal.

“All she does is cry. It’s heartbreaking,” said Singh, who is a U.S. citizen.

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Lauer contributed from Philadelphia and Taxin from Santa Ana, Calif.