DOJ sues California over noncitizen voter eligibility
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter discusses the DOJ lawsuit against California over voter rolls. McCotter details efforts to crack down on noncitizens registered to vote and ensure election integrity.
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A Biden-appointed federal judge in California ruled Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security must halt certain investigations into suspected illegal voting, citing concerns over voter intimidation.
U.S. District Judge Araceli MartÃnez-OlguÃn, the jurist in question, was born in Mexico and nominated to the federal bench by President Joe Biden in 2022. Before becoming a federal judge, MartÃnez-OlguÃn spent about six years at the American Civil Liberties Union, a progressive civil rights organization, where she worked on women’s and immigrants’ rights issues.
The activist groups suing DHS “demonstrate[d] that they are likely to succeed in their claim that Defendants have run afoul of the Voting Rights Act’s prohibition of intimidating voter assistance and mobilization,” according to MartÃnez-OlguÃn.
The Department of Homeland Security has directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport undocumented immigrants who vote in American elections. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
The public’s “interests in safe elections, free from interference or intimidation, far exceed (the government’s) purported interest in combating unlawful voting by non-U.S. citizens,” she added.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, maintained that noncitizen voting in federal elections is a crime and that DHS has statutory authority to investigate suspected violations. MartÃnez-OlguÃn did not find investigating noncitizen voting as itself unlawful, but instead argued that DHS’ methods likely violate the law as it used unreliable source data and sent armed agents to homes to conduct interviews, which could constitute intimidation.
STATE DEPARTMENT CONSIDERS SHARING PASSPORT RECORDS FOR VOTER CITIZENSHIP CHECKS
Members of Homeland Security Investigations listen as FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a press conference on Oct. 23, 2025 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Lawyers representing the federal government conceded that some American citizens may have been looked at in connection with DHS’ investigations, but contended that in-person interviews were “expressly designed to resolve the discrepancies.”
Noncitizen voting is rare, but cases of illegal voting have been documented. News broke earlier this year, for example, that New Jersey erroneously placed over 6,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls. The Justice Department announced charges against 16 individuals in September, including noncitizens accused of voting illegally in federal elections, and brought additional election-related charges in October.
US President Donald Trump (R) speaks as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (L) looks on before he signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 31, 2026. President Donald Trump on March 31 signed an order seeking to crack down on mail-in voting, escalating his push to restrict a popular way of casting ballots in US elections. Trump’s executive order follows repeated attacks by the 79-year-old Republican on US elections, based on his disproven conspiracy theories about supposed cheating by his Democratic opponents. It was unclear whether Trump has authority to impose the measures and legal challenges were almost certain, with a possible final decision being left to the Supreme Court. (Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images)
MartÃnez-OlguÃn’s order blocks DHS from carrying out certain field investigations into suspected illegal voting involving U.S. citizens in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. Several of those states are led by Democrats who have opposed the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies, and some face high-profile elections in November.
Cracking down on illegal voting has been a priority for the second Trump administration, though it has yet to produce evidence of widespread noncitizen voting.
The judge delayed enforcement of her order until Friday, giving the Trump administration time to appeal, and set the restrictions to expire on Election Day unless otherwise ordered.
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“DHS is laser focused on identifying, prosecuting, and removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens. ONLY Americans should elect American leaders,” a spokesperson for the department told Fox News Digital. “We have no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be U.S. citizens.”