A Honduran immigrant who earlier this year was convicted of blocking ICE operations now stands accused of illegally registering to vote in California.
Darwin Jonathan Rivera-Flores filed his registration last year, despite not being a U.S. citizen, authorities said.
“Today’s arrest is the first of many to come,” said Bill Essayli, who is acting as U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. “Unfortunately, because states like California allow non-citizens to easily register to vote and receive a ballot by mail, there’s no telling how many non-citizens are currently registered to vote.”
Mr. Rivera was cited earlier this year with obstructing access to a government building where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operated. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in May and was sentenced to probation and told to stay away from the building.
Even as he was awaiting the outcome of that case, authorities said Mr. Rivera confronted an ICE employee near the building and threatened to “find” the person.
When an ICE agent tried to follow up with a phone call to investigate, he said he started getting abusive messages from unknown numbers.
“Who’s [sic] human rights have you violated today?” read one, while another said “Your not the good guy” and “I can’t wait until the mid terms you don’t have qualified immunity then we can start and indict all you guys one bye [sic] one.”
The agent said he went looking to see if Rivera was registered and discovered he was.
The registration form shows Mr. Rivera asserting that he is a citizen.
There is no mention in the court documents that Mr. Rivera cast a ballot.
His application was dated Nov. 4, 2025, which was the same day that the state voted on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new Democrat-friendly congressional district map.
The last federal election was 2024, well before the registration was submitted.
The ICE agent, whose name is blacked out in the publicly released criminal complaint, said Mr. Rivera came to the U.S. as a child in 2002 but has never sought nor attained citizenship.
The prosecution comes as President Trump pushes states to scour their voting lists for noncitizens.
In a primetime speech last month, he said Homeland Security identified more than 190,000 potential noncitizens on California’s rolls.
State officials have long downplayed any issue with noncitizen voting.
When The Washington Times in 2024 sought records of noncitizen voters booted from the rolls, the California secretary of state’s office reported that it didn’t “have any data to report on instances of noncitizens voting or being incorrectly registered and removed from the voting rolls.”
Local jurisdictions, though, have acknowledged the issue.
Orange County last year notified the federal government it removed 17 people from its voter rolls after realizing they weren’t citizens. The county said it investigated after receiving complaints from noncitizens that they received ballots in the mail under California’s all-mail election system.
