Federal Judge Bars DHS Voter-Fraud Field Operations in Nine States

A federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday blocked the Department of Homeland Security from carrying out parts of its campaign against suspected noncitizen voting, ruling that the effort rests on target lists the court called voluminous and unreliable.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United. The order covers nine states: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. It takes effect on Friday afternoon, giving the administration time to appeal, and runs through Election Day on Nov. 3.

What the order stops

The judge barred Homeland Security agents from conducting field operations, such as in-person interviews, to investigate people the department suspects of being noncitizens registered to vote, in cases where the person could be a U.S. citizen. The ruling described the program, which the court called the Unlawful Voter Initiative, as one whose data "is widely known to inadvertently include U.S. citizens." That leaves citizens afraid their names will be wrongly included among the hundreds of thousands identified for investigation, the judge wrote.

Martínez-Olguín found that the nurses' unions are likely to succeed on their claim that the operations violate the Voting Rights Act, which bans intimidation of people who help others register and vote. The ruling also noted that the administration had announced the deployment of armed officers as part of the effort.

"This order is a serious protection: the current policy targets known naturalized citizens," said Beau Tremitiere, an attorney with Protect Democracy, which represents the unions. "Those operations are prohibited."

A wider court fight over the rolls

The injunction is the latest courtroom setback for the administration's push on voter rolls, a central claim in President Donald Trump's repeated and unfounded assertions of widespread noncitizen voting. In July, Homeland Security said preliminary reviews had found 190,832 noncitizens registered to vote in California alone. The figures referred to potential registrations, not ballots cast, and state officials have disputed them. Nevada officials said a federal list that began at 15,903 names in their state was narrowed to 185 people, and that all 185 appeared to be citizens.

On Oct. 15, the Justice Department sued California, asking a court to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 voters federal officials flagged as likely noncitizens until their citizenship could be verified. On Oct. 9, a different federal judge ruled that the Justice Department's policy of collecting state voter rolls and checking them against immigration data was unlawful. Senate Democrats sued the administration on Tuesday over the same cleanup effort, arguing that Congress left voter list maintenance to the states.

Homeland Security had not publicly responded to Wednesday's ruling. The department can appeal before the order takes effect on Friday.