Federal Agents Arrested 72-Year-Old Fresno-Area Resident in Pre-Dawn Raid Over Voter Registration Charges
Federal agents arrested Omar Muñoz, a 72-year-old lawful permanent resident from Commerce, California, before dawn on Monday in what he and legal experts describe as a heavily staged operation involving multiple law-enforcement vehicles, a helicopter, and camera crews — all to detain a man accused of a nonviolent voting offense.
Muñoz is one of 28 green-card holders charged across California by the Trump administration with allegedly registering to vote unlawfully. Those charged in the Central Valley region face misdemeanor charges carrying maximum one-year sentences. Those charged in the Los Angeles area, including Muñoz, face felony charges carrying maximum five-year prison sentences.
“Open up or else we’ll break down the door, and it’ll be bad for you,” Muñoz recalled an officer yelling at his front door just after 5 a.m. When he opened it, he saw officers in police vests, helmets, and masks. Outside: about six law-enforcement cars, cameras filming, and a taped-off street. A helicopter flew overhead.
Muñoz said he told officers he was frail after six recent surgeries and is a fall risk. They handcuffed him anyway, he said, and walked him out in the red pajama pants he had slept in. Associated Press photos show officers, some with shields, escorting a shackled Muñoz in the dark of morning.
“It was staged and I’m the patsy,” Muñoz said. “They wanted to make a scene.”
The Department of Justice released a slickly edited promotional video of Muñoz’s arrest the next day, titled “OPERATION PROTECT THE VOTE,” set to upbeat rock music and posted to the agency’s X account. The edit blurred Muñoz’s face but showed neighbors watching, officers escorting him, and clips of his processing before his first court appearance.
“It’s disgusting,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former deputy assistant attorney general. “There’s no point other than partisan politics behind that sizzle reel. And DoJ is supposed to be forbidden from engaging in partisan politics in their enforcement actions.”
Sergio Perez, a civil rights lawyer and former Department of Justice attorney, said the department historically would investigate improper-voting claims but would not approach these cases theatrically, nor bring charges during campaign season — two weeks before a midterm election — to avoid any appearance of meddling. “These folks are clearly not flight risks and weren’t accused of violent acts,” Perez said. “To enter into residential neighborhoods with this degree of militarized approach is unheard of.”
Defense lawyers said prosecutors typically coordinate with federal defenders to have defendants appear for a hearing in cases like this, rather than conducting pre-dawn raids.
The charges come as the Trump administration has ramped up efforts to criminally charge noncitizen voters ahead of the midterm elections. About 170 people have been charged for illegal voting since the start of Trump’s second term, according to Seamus Hughes, who runs the legal-news website Court Watch. There were more than 230 million people registered to vote in the 2024 presidential election.
The Department of Justice has also sued California, alleging 20,000 noncitizens are on the state’s voter rolls — a fraction of the more than 23 million registered voters in the state — and demanding certain ballots not be tabulated. State officials have rejected the claims, saying the department wrongly flagged U.S. citizens and people whose registrations have already been cancelled.
In the rare instances where noncitizens get registered to vote, it is often because they are confused, experts say. They may not know they are ineligible, or believe they can vote if someone offers them a chance. California is one of 24 states with automatic voter registration — a system in which people are automatically registered when they interact with certain state agencies unless they opt out.
Several people arrested in the California case have expressed confusion about the charges — one saying he mistakenly thought he could vote, another saying she had no recollection of registering as authorities alleged, and another flatly denying voting as authorities alleged.
Muñoz is accused in a federal criminal complaint of fraudulently registering to vote and making false statements in a citizenship application where he claimed to have never voted. A Department of Homeland Security agent alleges he cast ballots several times since 2020. At his lawyer’s advice, Muñoz declined to comment on the specific fraud claims while the charges are pending.
Muñoz said he was detained for about 10 hours in a 5-by-8-foot room with about 10 other individuals, handcuffed and chained at the waist and legs. “I said, ‘I have six surgeries. I’m a fall risk,’ and he didn’t care,” Muñoz said. He said he fell twice while being transported to a holding facility in downtown Los Angeles, and that more cameras awaited him there.
“It was so tight, I could barely walk and I was hurting,” he said of the shackles. He suffers from bone disease, nerve pain, a heart murmur, diabetes, and neuropathy, and said the shackles exacerbated his problems. He was given an apple and a candy bar — his only food for the day, he said.
When his family showed up to court to support him, he was released later that Monday. He saw the news coverage and understood why the government had put him in the spotlight: “This is about a fight between Trump and the Democrats,” he said.
Lliani Orantes, Muñoz’s daughter, who is a nurse, said that when her father was seen by doctors on Wednesday, discs in his spine appeared to be out of line in the area where he had a recent surgery, he was experiencing full-body trembles, and his blood pressure was very high. “It’s hurtful he has to go through this,” she said.
Muñoz, originally from Belize, said he has lived in the U.S. for more than 50 years and has 10 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. He retired in 2019 after a range of careers, including installing alarms and caretaking for people with disabilities.
He said the government could have sent him a letter asking him to come to court or dispatched one or two officers to his door without fanfare. “I understand they have an allegation against me, that’s their job, but it’s the manner that they did this to me,” he said. “There were so many officers. How much taxpayer money went into that?”
Muñoz said he was in the process of applying to become a U.S. citizen when he was arrested. His first court date is set for November. He said he hadn’t contemplated the idea of going to prison. “Living with your wife for more than 50 years and being in there and not knowing anything, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do. Would I die in there?”
The Department of Justice did not respond to inquiries about Muñoz’s case and about criticisms of its media strategy. A DHS spokesperson declined to answer questions about Muñoz, saying the department doesn’t comment on active investigations. The spokesperson said DHS was “actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found” and that “aliens who vote … will face the consequences – including criminal charges and deportation.”
The Breakdown
- Omar Muñoz, a 72-year-old lawful permanent resident from Commerce, California (in the Los Angeles area), was arrested before dawn on Monday by federal agents and charged with allegedly registering to vote unlawfully and making false statements in a citizenship application. He is one of 28 green-card holders charged across California.
- Those charged in the Central Valley region face misdemeanor charges carrying maximum one-year sentences. Those charged in the Los Angeles area, including Muñoz, face felony charges carrying maximum five-year prison sentences.
- The arrest involved multiple law-enforcement vehicles, a helicopter, cameras, and a taped-off street. The Department of Justice released a promotional video of the arrest the next day, titled “OPERATION PROTECT THE VOTE.”
- Legal experts, including a former deputy assistant attorney general, called the video and the manner of arrest “disgusting” and said the Department of Justice is supposed to be forbidden from engaging in partisan politics in enforcement actions. Former DoJ attorneys said the department historically would not approach these cases theatrically or bring charges during campaign season — two weeks before a midterm election — to avoid any appearance of meddling.
- About 170 people have been charged for illegal voting since the start of Trump’s second term. There were more than 230 million people registered to vote in the 2024 presidential election.
- In the rare instances where noncitizens get registered to vote, experts say it is often because they are confused — they may not know they are ineligible, or believe they can vote if someone offers them a chance. California is one of 24 states with automatic voter registration.
- Muñoz said he was detained for about 10 hours, handcuffed and chained at the waist and legs, despite telling officers he was frail after six recent surgeries and is a fall risk. He said he fell twice during transport and was given an apple and a candy bar as his only food for the day. His daughter, a nurse, said that when he was seen by doctors two days later, discs in his spine appeared to be out of line where he had recent surgery, he was experiencing full-body trembles, and his blood pressure was very high.
What This Means for You
The Trump administration’s approach to voter-fraud enforcement — staging pre-dawn raids with multiple vehicles and camera crews for nonviolent voting offenses, releasing promotional videos, and bringing charges two weeks before a midterm election — is a direct exercise of executive-branch policy set by the President you elected in 2024. Legal experts and former Department of Justice attorneys say this represents a significant departure from the department’s historical norms, which avoided actions that could be perceived as trying to influence elections and avoided theatrical enforcement of nonviolent offenses.
When you weigh how the administration you voted for uses federal law-enforcement resources — including whether those resources are being used to enforce the law or to create a public impression of widespread voter fraud where studies show it is exceedingly rare — this is the record: 170 people charged for illegal voting since the start of Trump’s second term, out of more than 230 million registered voters in the 2024 election, and a promotional video titled “OPERATION PROTECT THE VOTE” released two weeks before a midterm. Voting-rights advocates say the administration is trying to sow doubt about the integrity of the elections in the lead-up to high-stakes midterms.
The question for you as a voter is whether this is the kind of law enforcement you want your tax dollars funding, and whether the officials who set this policy — the President and the Department of Justice leadership he appointed — are using their authority to protect elections or to shape public perception of them.
What to Watch
Muñoz said the government could have sent him a letter or dispatched one or two officers instead of the operation he described. He asked: “How much taxpayer money went into that?” The material does not state the cost of the operation — how many officers were deployed, how many vehicles, how long the helicopter flew, or what the production of the promotional video cost. A budget line, an agency spending report, or a response to a public-records request would show that figure.
The Department of Justice released a promotional video of the arrest set to upbeat rock music and titled “OPERATION PROTECT THE VOTE.” Justin Levitt, a former deputy assistant attorney general, said the video was designed to confuse the public about the prevalence of voter fraud and that “the government wants the circus, because they like the circus. And that is wildly improper, because we pay for that.” Wendy Weiser, vice-president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice, said “this is all part of this PR campaign” and that the administration was trying to create a false impression of voter fraud. The question is whether the video and the manner of arrest were about enforcing the law or about creating a spectacle — and who benefits from that spectacle two weeks before a midterm election.
The material documents two tiers of charges for the same alleged conduct: those charged in the Central Valley face misdemeanor charges with maximum one-year sentences; those charged in the Los Angeles area face felony charges with maximum five-year sentences. The material does not explain why the same alleged conduct — unlawful voter registration — carries different charges in different parts of the state. A prosecutorial memo, a charging guideline, or a statement from the Department of Justice would show the basis for that difference.
Muñoz said he was detained for about 10 hours, handcuffed and chained at the waist and legs, despite telling officers he was frail after six recent surgeries and is a fall risk. He said he fell twice during transport. His daughter said that when he was seen by doctors two days later, discs in his spine appeared to be out of line where he had recent surgery, he was experiencing full-body trembles, and his blood pressure was very high. The material does not include a medical report, an incident report from the detention facility, or a statement from the officers involved about whether Muñoz’s medical conditions were documented or accommodated. Those records would show whether the treatment he described violated standards for detaining a frail, elderly person accused of a nonviolent offense.
Experts say that in the rare instances where noncitizens get registered to vote, it is often because they are confused — they may not know they are ineligible, or believe they can vote if someone offers them a chance. California is one of 24 states with automatic voter registration, in which people are automatically registered when they interact with certain state agencies unless they opt out. Several people arrested in this case have expressed confusion about the charges. The material does not state whether the 28 people charged were offered a chance to explain how they came to be registered, whether they understood they were ineligible, or whether the automatic-registration system played a role in their cases. Interviews with the defendants, voter-registration records, or a Department of Justice memo on the cases would show that.
The Department of Justice has sued California, alleging 20,000 noncitizens are on the state’s voter rolls — a fraction of the more than 23 million registered voters in the state. State officials have rejected the claims, saying the department wrongly flagged U.S. citizens and people whose registrations have already been cancelled. The material does not include the list of 20,000 people the Department of Justice alleges are noncitizens, the methodology the department used to identify them, or the state’s own audit of the list. Those records would show whether the federal government’s claim is accurate or whether it is, as state officials say, a list of wrongly flagged citizens.
