ACLU Sues to Stop the Federal Hunt for Noncitizen Voters

Civil rights groups sued the Trump administration in California federal court on Wednesday, asking a judge to shut down a Homeland Security program that deploys hundreds of investigators to hunt for noncitizen voters. The lawsuit says the program, called the Unlawful Voter Initiative, rests on flawed and outdated data and has subjected thousands of fully naturalized American citizens to improper investigations, door-to-door questioning and the risk of losing their vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union and its affiliates filed the case six days before the November 3 midterm elections, which will decide whether Republicans keep control of both houses of Congress. The groups say the administration is also pressing state election officials to deny ballots to voters who appear on the federal lists, a step they argue could shake confidence in the results.

What the lawsuit asks for

The complaint names the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Markwayne Mullin, along with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and its director, Joseph Edlow. It asks the court to vacate the Unlawful Voter Initiative, to order the destruction of records created under it, and to bar the government from pressuring state officials to withhold or discard valid ballots cast by people named on the lists.

The groups argue the initiative violates the Civil Rights Act, the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The ACLU also wants a declaratory judgment that the program is unlawful.

"The Trump administration is challenging voters and threatening states based off flawed and outdated data," said Theresa Lee, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. "The administration can't keep creating political stunts to sow distrust in our elections and lay the groundwork to question results they don't like."

Thu Nguyen, executive director of OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, one of the groups backing the case, said federal agencies are using bad information to investigate and intimidate the people they are supposed to serve. "We cannot allow fear to keep people from exercising their right to vote," she said.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Subpoenas, cases and a California ballot fight

Homeland Security launched the initiative in August, directing Citizenship and Immigration Services staff to build lists of people to investigate for possibly voting without being a U.S. citizen. Reuters reported on Wednesday that the administration has since issued more than 100 subpoenas seeking records on tens of thousands of voters in at least a dozen states.

The Justice Department has brought more than 100 cases accusing individuals of voting as noncitizens. It has also gone to court to stop California from counting mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters the administration says are noncitizens.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted that noncitizen voting is widespread in U.S. elections, a claim that has been widely debunked.

A court already limited the program once

Last week, a federal judge in California placed limits on the initiative in nine states, in a case The Orbit Post covered on October 22. The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit say those restrictions expire at the end of Election Day on November 3, which would leave the program free to operate in future federal elections.

No hearing date has been announced. State officials have not said whether the new filing changes how they handle the federal lists in the final days of early voting.