Past hoax · Filed Oct 26, 2026
Illegals Aren’t Voting Hoax
Noncitizens are not voting. It is illegal, so it does not happen.
The claim
Noncitizens are not voting. It is illegal, so it does not happen.
What it was
On October 19, 2026, the Justice Department charged 28 green-card holders in California with registering, and in most of those cases voting. One is accused of voting in 2020, twice in 2022, and again in 2024.
Timeline
Sep 2019
Omar Alexander Muñoz, a Belizean green-card holder in Commerce, registers to vote while claiming to be a U.S. citizen. That is the Justice Department’s account.
2020–2024
He is accused of voting in person in 2020, by mail twice in 2022, and by mail in November 2024, then lying on a naturalization application that he had never claimed citizenship.
Jul 2026
Homeland Security warns California its rolls may contain on the order of 190,000 possible noncitizen registrants. The state does not treat that letter as a list to purge.
Oct 13, 2026
Trent McCotter gives the secretary of state and Los Angeles 48 hours and a list of about 20,000 people the department says are likely noncitizens who were mailed ballots. The county will not open the drive.
Oct 19, 2026
The department charges 28 green-card holders. Eleven are arrested, including Muñoz. Fox airs it. Silverman reposts it. Newsom and Rob Bonta call the wider list a stunt. The next day Los Angeles says its first look found the list unreliable.
What aired
The clip is a Fox News report, reposted by April Silverman. The chyron is “Feds nab 28 alleged noncitizen voters in CA probe.” Matt Finn is live from Los Angeles. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter has just announced charges against 28 noncitizens for illegally registering to vote. Eight of them, he says, voted more than once. A Fox camera is at a house in Commerce as agents arrest 73-year-old Omar Alexander Muñoz. The complaint, as Finn reads it, says Muñoz was born in Belize, is a lawful permanent resident, and is not a citizen. He is accused of checking the citizenship box, then voting in person in 2020, by mail twice in 2022, and by mail again in November 2024. The same segment is the fight over a federal list of about 20,000 suspected noncitizens who were mailed ballots. McCotter says California and Los Angeles did not answer that the names were citizens and did not offer to check. Los Angeles County would not even open the list, citing the computer. Governor Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta called the list a political stunt.
The record
The Justice Department’s own announcement that day matches the arrest and is more specific about status. All 28 are lawful permanent residents. A green card is legal presence. It is not citizenship, and it is not a ballot. Eleven were arrested that morning under Operation Protect the Vote. The department lists Muñoz as 72, a Belizean in Commerce who registered in September 2019 by claiming to be a citizen, voted in 2020, twice in 2022, and in 2024, and then lied on a naturalization application that he had never claimed to be a citizen. Other defendants are from Mexico, Guatemala, the Philippines, and Canada. The department’s announcement says most of them cast ballots. These are charges. They are not convictions. They are also not “nobody.”
Left out
Left out of the slogan is the difference between illegal presence and a green card. These 28 are not a border crossing. They are noncitizens with legal status who still cannot vote, and who are charged with doing it anyway. Also left out, on the other side, is the difference between those 28 complaints and the list of 20,000. That list is “likely.” McCotter said the same day it may include some citizens, which is why he asked the state to check. Los Angeles later called its first look unreliable. A disputed list is not 20,000 proven illegal votes. The complaints are a different document. The slogan treats both as either a myth or a landslide. Neither sentence is the file.
Why it stuck
“It’s illegal, so it doesn’t happen” stuck because it ends the argument in one breath. A felony is not a force field. California registers by attestation. The form asks the person to say they are a citizen. It does not check. Once the box is the only screen, a noncitizen who checks it is on the roll and, in this state, in the mail-ballot system. “Rare” was the fallback once the arrests were on television. Rare is not none. One man accused of four ballots across three elections is not none. Twenty-eight complaints in a single state, announced in one morning, are not a rumor about a thing that cannot occur.