Naturalization

Federal prosecutors announced charges against 28 green-card holders as part of "Operation Protect the Vote," alleging they registered or voted as citizens in California; 11 were arrested. Prosecutors say defendants claimed citizenship on registration forms, in some cases voted, then denied citizenship on naturalization paperwork—felony conduct carrying up to five years, with noncitizen voting in a federal election carrying one year. All defendants are presumed innocent. The case follows separate, unrelated Los Angeles prosecutions over paid registrations and forged petitions. Separately, the Department of Justice is seeking a federal court order blocking ballots tied to more than 20,000 flagged "likely" noncitizen registrants, a figure state officials dispute, with California's attorney general questioning discrepancies in Homeland Security's broader estimates.

A printing vendor error caused nearly 7,800 voters in Tulare County to receive duplicate vote-by-mail ballots ahead of the Nov. 3 election, prompting confused calls to the registrar's office. ProVote Solutions, the county's longtime ballot printer, accepted responsibility and mailed correction notices instructing voters to destroy extra ballots. A similar mailing error affected 160 confidential voters in Imperial County. Officials say existing safeguards — barcode tracking, signature verification, and duplicate-vote flagging — prevent double counting. The incidents, in a competitive Central Valley congressional district, quickly drew conspiracy claims on social media amid heightened distrust of mail voting fueled by President Trump's unproven fraud allegations and his blocked effort to restrict mail-in ballots.

JD Mazuera Arias, who represents Charlotte City Council's District 5, is marking one year since becoming the first Latino elected to the body. Born in Colombia in 1998, he immigrated with his family to the U.S. as an infant, settling in east Charlotte in 2001. Undocumented for much of his childhood, he lived under DACA protections as a "Dreamer," graduated from East Mecklenburg High School and Queens University of Charlotte, and later earned a graduate degree in New York City before becoming a naturalized citizen in 2021.

After returning to east Charlotte, he ran for office citing long-standing neglect of the majority immigrant, Latino and Black working-class district, pointing to the decade-long vacancy left by Eastland Mall's demolition. Elected in November 2025 at age 28, he is also the first Gen-Z member of the council. Over his first year, he has backed creation of the city's first international relations office, aimed at expanding immigrant services and foreign investment, while saying he hopes future Latino leaders won't face the same "first" milestone.

Illinois and California lawmakers have introduced legislation to block the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) from closing its Chicago and San Francisco/San Bruno facilities, a plan first disclosed to staff in a June email. The Chicago site, many of whose records are undigitized and accessible only in person, holds documents including Pullman Strike court cases, Bureau of Indian Affairs files, and naturalization and census records used by researchers, genealogists and citizenship applicants.

Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García sent a letter to the Archivist of the United States demanding the closure be halted, signed by 20 members of Congress including Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and backed by California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff. Durbin and Duckworth also introduced the National Archives Protection Act, which would require congressional approval before NARA can close or restrict access to regional facilities; a companion House bill was filed by Rep. Kevin Mullin. NARA has said records would be redistributed to facilities in Kansas City, Boston and Seattle. NARA did not respond to requests for comment. Archivists' advocates say the closures would harm access to records regardless of political affiliation.

Cuyahoga County's Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) Board has won praise from social service providers even after cutting funding to some of them, a marked contrast to the resistance County Executive Chris Ronayne has faced over demands for across-the-board departmental cuts. Providers say the ADAMHS Board took a thoughtful, targeted approach, evaluating which programs work together and prioritizing outcomes rather than simply preserving every existing agency, with some organizations gaining funding while others lost it. The opening of the Glick Recovery Campus, for example, absorbed services previously funded elsewhere.

By contrast, Ronayne's request for a flat 3.3% cut across all departments has drawn open pushback, with officials including the county prosecutor and clerk of courts declining to comply, arguing the executive's own office has expanded staff and spending. County departments have also outlined worst-case scenarios—including losing universal pre-K and funding for child advocacy and college-support programs—if voters reject a health and human services levy. The episode highlights how budget process and perceived fairness shape public and institutional trust during periods of shrinking government resources.

Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both California Democrats, have asked California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate a whistleblower's allegations that a DHS unit improperly accessed the state's voter registration data. The disclosure claims USCIS's Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate was assigned an "unlawful voter initiative" using questionable data and methods to flag purported unlawful voters, potentially including U.S. citizens who could face law enforcement records based on rushed reviews. Personnel were reportedly held to quotas of 40 subjects a day and told to misrepresent themselves to access the data, with the effort aimed at completion by September 12.

Padilla and Schiff argue the initiative appears designed to find or manufacture evidence for voter fraud claims ahead of the 2026 midterms, warning of serious consequences for naturalized citizens wrongly flagged. They previously urged DHS and USCIS leadership to halt the effort. A DHS spokesperson defended the practice, saying the department cross-referenced publicly available voter rolls with known aliens in its systems. The Trump administration has separately pursued voter data from other states, with a federal judge earlier dismissing a related DOJ suit against California as "unprecedented and illegal."

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina is pursuing denaturalization and fraud cases against four men, citing false statements made during naturalization proceedings. A federal grand jury indicted Sha Bahadur Ghaley, a Bhutanese-born naturalized citizen, on naturalization fraud charges after he allegedly lied about prior criminal conduct on his 2017 application; he was later convicted in 2024 of sexually abusing a child and sentenced to prison and lifetime sex-offender registration. He faces up to 10 additional years if convicted of fraud.

Separately, between June and August, prosecutors filed civil denaturalization complaints against three men — Benjamin Hernandez (also known as Luis Elder Alvarado), Han Xiong Chen, and Kevin Yun-Sang Kim — alleging each concealed prior deportations, false identities, or immigration violations to obtain citizenship. Officials say the cases stem partly from a new fingerprint-comparison method used to detect identity fraud in past naturalization applications. U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson said such fraud takes citizenship opportunities from eligible applicants and pledged continued enforcement.

A federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced Samir Ousman Alsheikh, 74, to 60 years in prison for orchestrating torture at a Syrian prison and lying to U.S. immigration officials to enter and remain in the country. A jury convicted him in March on charges including conspiracy to commit torture, three counts of torture, visa fraud, and attempted naturalization fraud.

Prosecutors said Alsheikh headed Adra Prison, also known as Damascus Central Prison, from roughly 2005 to 2008 under then-President Bashar al-Assad, overseeing brutal treatment of political dissidents, including beatings, prolonged suspension, and confinement in filthy, vermin-infested cells. Officials describe him as the highest-ranking former Assad regime figure convicted in person outside Syria. He entered the U.S. in 2020 and was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in July 2024 after concealing his background on immigration applications.

U.S. District Judge Hernán Vera called the crimes "heinous" and "unspeakably violent." Alsheikh's attorney said he plans to appeal. Prosecutors had sought at least 80 years; the defense had requested five, citing his age and health.