Appeals court bars DHS voter fraud program that targeted alleged noncitizens in nine states

In a win for voters, the Ninth Circuit denied the Trump administration’s request to resume a voter fraud investigation that targeted alleged noncitizens in nine states during midterm elections.

The order leaves in place a lower court’s preliminary injunction blocking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from conducting door-to-door investigations to interrogate individuals about alleged voter fraud before Election Day. The decision dampens the Trump administration’s wider campaign to intimidate naturalized citizens from voting and to fuel rhetoric about noncitizen voting.

However, moments after the order was published, an anonymous judge in the Ninth Circuit made a request for the circuit court to vote on whether the case should be reheard by the full panel. The Trump administration will likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if the full panel doesn’t bite.

Pro-voting groups, along with the city of San Francisco and Santa Clara County, Calif., argued in their lawsuit that the investigations are a form of voter intimidation.

“The declarants’ fear is reasonably exacerbated by two years of highly visible aggressive conduct by federal agents in immigration enforcement operations under this administration,” the unanimous ruling from the three-judge panel reads.

The legal battle centers on the DHS’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative” launched to investigate alleged illegal voting by noncitizens. According to court documents, the program utilized artificial intelligence and unverified commercial data to generate target lists, leading often-militarized  door-to-door interrogations by armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

President Donald Trump has baselessly claimed for years that noncitizens voting is a widespread problem. In reality. It’s something that rarely occurs and never on a scale capable of tipping election results.

The California Nurses Association and National Nurses United (CNA/NNU), plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit on behalf of their members — many of whom are naturalized citizens — have been afraid to participate in election-related activities due to the highly publicized raids.

The three-judge panel concluded that the federal government failed to demonstrate it would suffer irreparable harm if the program were paused through Election Day.

The court also criticized the timing of the government’s “surge” in enforcement, noting that the administration had over a year and a half to investigate past voter fraud but chose to escalate operations just as early voting began.

“To the extent that Federal Defendants are focused on preventing illegally registered noncitizens from voting in the upcoming election, Defendants’ delay in beginning the Surge has rendered it no longer practicable to prosecute anyone they could identify before Election Day,” the ruling reads.

The preliminary injunction is set to automatically expire when polls close on Election Day. The injunction covers California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.