By admin 
A 46-year-old Sacramento man accused by the Trump administration of voting in two elections without being a U.S. citizen was ordered released from federal custody on Tuesday pending further court proceedings.
Read more Judge releases Sacramento man accused of illegally voting in federal elections
Juan Antonio Rivas Garcia was the last of three people arrested in the sprawling federal judicial district that includes Sacramento and Fresno to be released on their own recognizance following misdemeanor voting offenses announced Monday by the federal government. Another three, who were charged but not arrested in the district, will appear in court next month.
Altogether, 11 California residents were arrested and another 17 were charged with voting and immigration violations on Monday in widely publicized prosecutions that mark the latest escalation in a fight between President Donald Trump’s Republican administration and California’s Democratic leaders over allegations of voter fraud.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against California, claiming the state was refusing to help investigate some 20,000 immigrants the federal government believed might have registered to vote illegally. Days later, officials held a news conference in Los Angeles, announcing misdemeanor or felony charges against 28 people throughout the state.
All of the people charged Monday are lawful permanent residents of the United States. But prosecutors say that while they held green cards, they did not have the right to register to vote or cast a ballot.
In one case, a Los Angeles-area woman registered to vote in 2006 but never voted. Twenty years later, when applying for U.S. citizenship, she said she had never misrepresented herself as a citizen. She was charged with a felony.
Rivas Garcia is accused of registering to vote twice and casting ballots in the 2022 and 2024 federal elections.
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He was arrested on Monday and charged with a misdemeanor offense of voting by an alien in a federal election. At his initial appearance in Sacramento federal court, he wore an orange sweatshirt and black pants, with his black hair combed back from his forehead. The edges of what appeared to be a tattoo on the back of his neck peeked out of his shirt.
According to the complaint filed against him in federal court, Rivas Garcia filled out a voter registration form by hand in 2018, listing his Sacramento address and attesting that he was born in Mexico. He said he was a U.S. citizen and asked to receive his ballots by mail.
He re-registered more than once, updating details such as his address and leaving out his place of birth on one occasion, the complaint said.
He applied to become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2019 but was denied, the complaint said.
Rivas Garcia was ordered released by U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Delaney. She set his next hearing for Nov. 9, the same day most of the others charged in the operation are scheduled to return to court.
This story was originally published October 20, 2026 at 3:32 PM with the headline “Judge releases Sacramento man accused of illegally voting in federal elections.”
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