A federal prosecutor in Los Angeles said Friday that election fraud arrests have begun in California, announcing the arrest and charging of a Honduran national accused of getting on the state’s voter rolls by falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in an X post that Darwin Jonathan Rivera Flores was taken into custody and charged with two felonies: unlawfully registering to vote and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship.

If convicted, Flores faces prison time and deportation. Essayli posted a brief video clip of the arrest.

Embedded tweet continues:

...deportation if convicted. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.

Essayli framed the case as the opening salvo in a broader federal battle over California’s voter rolls.

"Because states like California allow non-citizens to easily register to vote and receive a ballot by mail, there is no telling how many non-citizens are currently registered," he said. "It is time for California to comply with [Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon's] request for a comprehensive audit of its voter rolls to protect the integrity of our elections."

Recommended
Kamala Harris Uncorks a Wild Midterm Conspiracy Theory — and the Video Is Something Else Teri Christoph Federal Judge Rules Trump Admin's Anthropic Ban Misused an 'Invocation of National Security' Ward Clark

Dhillon, in a letter one year ago to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber (D), demanded a complete electronic copy of the state’s voter registration list, warning that failure to produce the records could lead to legal action. 

“Voting by non-citizens is a federal crime, and states and counties that refuse to disclose all requested voter information are in violation of well-established federal election laws,” she said in a lawsuit against the Orange County Registrar of Voters prior to that. 

"Removal of non-citizens from the state’s voter rolls is critical to ensuring that the State’s voter rolls are accurate and that elections in California are conducted without fraudulent voting.”

Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell called the arrest “the tip of the iceberg."

The announcement is a federal action from Essayli’s office, not a claim that California has never prosecuted election fraud before; state cases have already produced charges and sentences in recent years. 

In March, former Lodi City Councilman Shakir Khan, a Pakistani immigrant living in California, was sentenced to three years in jail after a state election fraud case involving voter registrations and mail ballots found at his home.

What is new is a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor publicly tying a non-citizen registration arrest to a promised wave of additional cases.

California officials have refused to turn over an unredacted statewide voter file to the Justice Department, and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has continued to fight Trump administration election-oversight efforts in court.