Judge limits DHS voter intimidation efforts targeting alleged noncitizens in nine states

A federal judge limited aggressive U.S. Department of Homeland Security field operations targeting alleged noncitizen voting in nine states in a Wednesday ruling.

The operation ordered a series of field interviews and stops that targeted alleged noncitizens accused of registering to vote. Pro-voting groups said the harassment campaign threatened legal voters. President Donald Trump has baselessly claimed for years that noncitizens voting is widespread. In reality, it’s something that rarely happens and never in enough numbers to affect the outcome of an election. 

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguin in California agreed that DHS’s efforts amount to “ongoing intimidation” that would cause “irreparable harm” to legal voters.

Martínez-Olguin blocked any DHS agents from conducting operations against people they suspect are likely U.S. citizens in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. However, DHS can continue investigation of suspected noncitizens.

Despite that, Martínez-Olguin found that agents’ “target lists” were likely rife with errors, similar to other Trump administration attempts to use federal immigration data to assess voter rolls. 

The plaintiffs include a California nurse’s association, two local governments and the nonprofit Voto Latino Foundation.

Their interests and “the public’s interest in safe elections, free from interference or intimidation, far exceed defendants’ purported interest in combating unlawful voting by non-U.S. citizens,” Martínez-Olguin wrote.

The ruling will not go into effect until Friday evening to give the government time to appeal, and it will automatically expire after Election Day.

DHS’ campaign, known as the “Unlawful Voter Initiative,” came under fire in September after a whistleblower alleged federal agents were ordered to illegally misrepresent themselves as voters on state websites to obtain voter information. Officials reportedly directed agents to complete at least 40 subject reviews per day — which meant officers could take no more than 12 minutes on each suspected voter.

In response, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin calling the department’s actions “alarming.”

Federal authorities have sought to repurpose immigration databases to target noncitizen voting, but they have produced significant errors.

DHS claimed nearly 16,000 potential noncitizens were on Nevada’s roll, but after state officials questioned that figure, the department’s claim fizzled from 15,903 possible noncitizens to 185 and eventually to zero.

The Trump administration has particularly targeted California and other Democratic states. In early October, the U.S. Department of Justice sued California and Los Angeles for refusing to set aside 20,000 ballots it claimed without evidence were illegally submitted by noncitizens.

At the time, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said the DOJ lawsuit was part of the Trump administration’s “authoritarian attempt to undermine our democracy.”